Synopsis:
Following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus became the joint rulers of the Roman empire. Antony, however, becomes entranced by Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, and neglects his military and political responsibilities to indulge in luxury and decadence. The scandal becomes the talk of Rome, and young Octavius Caesar uses Mark Antony’s weakness for his own advancement. A classic tale of an exalted passion shackled by reason and politics.
Harlequin Productions: Joy O’th’worm Review by Rose @ www.noriega.biz
“There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure now…” - Mark Antony, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
In these unsettling times, it’s really important to do a little something for yourself now and then, to remind yourself that life is precious, and you are fully living it.
With my threadbare artist’s wallet, I had a fully within-my-budget luxurious weekend in Olympia, Washington. I cannot recommend it more highly. The place is an undiscovered jewel in the heart of the Pacific Northwest. There are splendid and affordable hotels that seem out of a different era with actually polite people working there, making you feel like you matter. And damn it, you DO. Within walking distance of these posh (but cheap) hotels are countless lovely restaurants, bars for the young and rowdy and bars for the quietly classy; quirky and cute shops, and …the best thing of all: the elegant State theatre which houses Harlequin Productions. My lord. I am going to have to edit this review heavily if I even touch on how much I love Harlequin theatre. The artistic staff are real “folks”…they can often be seen in the lobby pre-show, chatting with audience members, knowing many of them by name, and genuinely caring about them. That’s the bottom line: they genuinely care. They want their audience to have a wonderful experience, and by God, we do! If you take a vacation this year, skip Seattle. Skip San Francisco and Ashland and NYC and Los Angeles. Disneyland is overcrowded and so are all of the above mentioned cities; your vacation will leave you feeling stressed out, and you just won’t get value for your money. Give yourself the gift of a truly blissfully relaxing time, and go to Olympia. Better yet, go while Antony and Cleopatra is still playing! That’s what I am reviewing, by the way: I just wanted to give you a little taste of lovely Olympia first. . So go, check in to your hotel, pick up the VIP bag they’ll leave on your bed, get out the bubble bath, then sit and have a cocktail and stroll down the street to the State theatre, for the experience you’ll be talking about all year.
I’ve seen three or four productions of A&C; they had moments of goodness, and were largely boring and incomprehensible, even for someone who studied Shakespeare with the world-famous.
Harlequin’s Antony and Cleopatra stands head and shoulders above them all, better by far than any Shakespeare I have seen in years, including the offerings held out by the “professional” houses in Seattle. I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of theater that is only for the extremely wealthy. I am sick of cold, slick productions that send the cashmere-and-pearls crowd home unmoved, smug in the knowledge that they’ve been to the theater and can talk all about it at the next cocktail party. No, No! theater should be for everyone, and it should have heart. I have sat in countless “professional” productions, and heard around me these comments at intermission : “I hate to say this, but I didn’t understand a word.” “yeah…I don’t get it.” Well, none of that happens at Harlequin. Their Shakespeare is approachable, it’s beginner and veteran-friendly, all at once: it’s for everyone, and it’s one hundred percent committed, alive, and human.
I’ve seen several of their Shakespeare shows, and come out each time with my heart pounding, feeling fully alive. I admit I was apprehensive about Antony and Cleopatra, as it’s such a difficult one to do, but my fears were unrealized: their A&C is absolutely incredible.
I’m going to start where I plan on ending: if you want to meet the famous beauty Queen Cleopatra in the flesh, as she must have been when she conquered the hearts of warriors, and as Shakespeare must have envisioned her as he put her immortal words on parchment so many hundreds of years ago, all you have to do is go to see Harlequin’s production, sometime in October of this year. She won’t be there long, but she’s making a visit, straight from the past. Will you be one of the lucky ones who was there to see her?
Mari Nelson as Cleopatra is fire and air. She has somehow brought to life a character that I was starting to doubt any living actress could handle. I am getting goosebumps just remembering her work---she has the gift of reaching into your chest while you’re laughing at her last playful line, and squeezing your heart so all of a sudden you find yourself in tears, heart pounding, feeling again what it is to be fathoms deep in love.
“Eternity was in our lips and eyes, bliss in our brows’ bent…” - Cleopatra, A&C
And love is exactly what lives on that stage in Harlequin’s A&C. I thank director Scot Whitney (also artistic director of the company) for seeing something that all the other productions missed: this isn’t a tragedy until the last act. His direction is dynamic, and the play races along with lighthearted fun and comedy, interspersed with the deeply poignant musicality of the words of love. The music, by composer Bruce Whitney, the lights by Jill Carter, the lovely costumes by Monique Anderson and the brilliant set designed by Linda Whitney (who is a lot of genius packed into one little redheaded body: she does costumes! She directs! She writes plays!…) all work together in a seamless whole to transport us “beyond this ignorant present.” The set is absolutely perfect, symbolic (get there early, sip some wine and contemplate what it means) and deceptively simple: it allows the action to keep moving with absolutely no pauses and awkward changes, it gives several levels for the director and actors to create different places with lightning speed. The set and the direction work together to produce an extremely rare result: The audience gets to actually ride along on a journey. One moment we are in sensuous, hot and steamy Egypt, the next we are in the cool marble halls of a state building in Rome, at a formal and rather uncomfortable meeting. No sooner have we started to, by turns, giggle and squirm at the Triumvirate’s political dance, than we are whisked away to Egypt again to long for our love, and to revel in the languorous heat; then we’re in the midst of a hilarious drunken party in a tavern, then a heart-pounding battle, and we’re in a dark and crumbling tomb, quaking with fear: and by the end, when you stand up clapping your hands raw, I guarantee you, you’ll feel as though you haven’t been alive until now. Your senses will tingle. The air outside will be fresher, the stars brighter. Seeing this show is just like being in love, only better: it costs a lot less.
Harlequin somehow achieves on a relatively modest budget what many theatres cannot ever achieve (who often spend millions more to try to do it) : they make Shakespeare come to life, and feel modern and relevant. They bring to their audience a very personal experience. They take great care in every detail put into their productions, and it shows.
The actors are all really well cast. Every actor on that stage knew *exactly* what they were saying, and they committed fully to the life and circumstances of their character. That speaks to me of really good direction on the part of Scot Whitney. The ensemble all deserve enormous praise for not only playing several roles each, but playing them with conviction and heart. I would urge the ensemble to keep up that intense energy they had in the battles, as, when they believe it, so do we. I wish I could list every actor, as they deserve it, but a Shakespeare quote about brevity and wit (that sits on my desk glaring at me) compels me to focus on a few major standouts.
Carolyn Marie Monroe and Emilie Rommel-Shimkus both bring a lovely youthful vibrancy and sensuality to their roles: they have an interesting dynamic in their relationship with Cleopatra- they serve as a delicate foil to her strength, and they give us some moments of comedy and lighthearted fun as they admire and sometimes emulate her. Ms. Monroe’s death is moving and lovely, and Ms. Rommel-Shimkus is lovely and sweet as the innocent Octavia. Jared Van Heel is equal to the challenging role of Enobarbus: he is amusing and then strong; he allows his character to grow, although I was lost somewhere in the middle when he waxes poetic in his description of Cleopatra: what exactly is going on with him there? I’m sure if he’s a little more specific (is he in love with her?) it will be clear. He needs to breathe a bit, as I noticed his voice was pushed in his more emotional moments, which robbed him of expressiveness. Later on when he comes in as a soldier, his voice was quite clear and melodious, so I think he’s got a lot more potential there to tap into. Paul Purvine is absolutely perfect in the role of Octavius Caesar. He is delicate and yet brings a lot of dignity to the role despite his youth.
The casting of Caesar surprised me, as I am used to seeing him a bit more solid, a bit older. Casting Mr. Purvine turned out to be a stroke of genius, really, as he has a light, high, clear voice (and I must thank him for letting his own natural tembre ring clear, rather than trying to force it lower as many young actors do); he is willowy and young, and looks as though he could be broken in half by the older, leonine Antony. We , the audience, are taken in just as Antony is- which allows us to go on the journey fully. Again director Scot Whitney does not play the last act until it is time: then, along with Antony, we are lost, bewildered, heartbroken, but somehow wryly accepting, when it is time for the young to take over.
“His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear’d arm crested the world…think you there was, or might be, such a man as this I dream’d of?” - Cleopatra, A&C
As Antony, actor John Bogar only started to captivate me by the second act: once he started having to be more physical, his magnetism and energy began to come alive. He was very strong by the time his incredible scene with Eros came in the third act; I’d like to see the play again, and see if it was just opening night nerves that had his energy rather low in the beginning. He was marvelous in his moments of stillness; all of a sudden I had to cross out my old notes and begin afresh, as I began to see the power in the actor. It is very hard for a man to match the power of Mari Nelson- I have actually not seen an actor come close to it yet- the poor chaps usually seem a bit afraid of her. John Bogar succeeds in complementing her in passion and stature. They are very good together, and although it still seems that it is Cleopatra who should be donning the armor, I have a feeling that is what is supposed to be felt by the audience. The older, battle-worn Antony has lost himself in love with a fiery young woman, has discovered a feeling of youth again with her, and also has discovered an equal that he can match wits with; thus, his senses are devoted only to her, and he is being slowly conquered by a new young regime- though he is scarcely aware of it, and doesn’t begin to fight it, until the last act. I thoroughly enjoyed something rare in Mr. Bogar: the ability to be private in public. He had some moments onstage either alone or when Cleopatra was sleeping, wherein he gave us a glimpse of a fully rounded human being- a flawed man, who has the misfortune of having to live on the pedestal of a colossus.
Another few who deserve mention are Dennis Rolly who is absolutely fascinating in each of his roles- he brings a texture to each character that leaves me wanting to see more of them; it is clear they have histories and lives. It bothered me a few times that he faced almost completely upstage (back to the audience) during his scenes as the apothecary- he is really mysterious and riveting, please let us see his face! In the end as the “clown”, he succeeds at the delicate task of playing only his reality, not the tragedy of the last act, thus he brings a macabre comedy to the end - what an exquisite counterpoint!
And now I come to an actor that I could write pages about. He’s apparently relatively new to theatre, though I couldn’t tell. He plays several roles in this production, and I hope to see him onstage more often, and in starring capacities. Roderick Campbell brings a dedication and truthfulness to each of his roles that is a joy to watch. His grasp of Shakespeare’s language is masterful, his voice and physicality are strong and clear, and he has a youthful innocence that is charming and refreshing. I would love to see him play Puck someday. He is by turns extremely amusing as a slave, while bringing pathos to the role, which tells me he’s not up there playing a caricature or hamming around for laughs-he’s made each character a full human being. As the devoted Eros, he wrenches the hearts of the audience, with his courage and purity.
Also deserving mention are Kolya Schweppe who is just lovely as Mardian, Sara Flotree who is strong and a joy to watch in all of her characters, and Frank Lawler who is a deliciously piratical Pompey, and rivals Antony in his strong and graceful presence as a roman servant. (in fact, I’d like to see him play Antony one day. )
In closing (at last! I hear you say- hurry up and end this review so we can go buy our tickets!) the wonderful thing about live theatre is that, not only has it been happening for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s ephemeral: it only happens for a short time. When you’re present, you know that now, this evening, this performance, will never happen again. Catch it, I urge you : don’t miss it. I count my life richer for having been there on opening night; it’s not just the top-notch quality or the truly warm family-like welcome that Harlequin brings to each work they put on the stage; this time, it’s Cleopatra alive and breathing. She is as changeable as a spring breeze, she’s playful and youthful in the beginning: in one moment, we are laughing at her ridiculous, tomboyish pranks, then we find tears starting suddenly into our eyes as she makes us remember what it is to love too deeply. Then, she’s prowling the stage like a lithe, feral tiger, she is strong and intense, and frightening. By the end, Ms. Nelson’s Cleopatra is a thing of true majesty, and she’s gone through quite a journey to get there. I have never seen this role played so well, with so much humanity brought to it. With her work, Ms. Nelson gives the audience a rare, fine gift- it’s like she takes her heart, and all of her flaws and secrets, and puts them there on the stage for us to experience, so that we may start to love our own human flaws, and leave the theatre a little more forgiving and loving to ourselves. In going along on the journey of this production, we, the audience, give ourselves the gift of something memorable and fine, that will make us feel truly alive.
When: now through October 22, 2008
Where: Harlequin productions, Olympia, Washington
Who: directed by Scot Whitney
How: www.harlequinproductions.org
Why: because Rose told you to.
