about her, even including Enobarbus’ hyperbole. The fun of playing her is that she can be capricious and willful one moment and profound and moving the next. She has that extraordinary versatility.
Antony Sher once said that Antony bored him but that he’d like to play Cleopatra! Why do you think there are more women (and men?!) keen to play Cleopatra than men to play Antony ?
Noble: It’s a better part! Cleopatra is a great, great part. Antony is a very good part. Hamlet is a great part, King Lear is a great part, Antony is a very good part. Something rather curious has happened in terms of fashion, though, because it was regarded, when, for example, Anthony Quayle played it, as one of the benchmark characters that an actor could play. So your question really is why in a
modern
world is it not regarded so highly? I have to put on record, however, that Michael Gambon enjoyed playing Antony much more than he enjoyed playing Lear. He loved playing Antony. So it’s not a universal view.
I think there are one or two practical things relating to Antony, like the fact that he’s not there at the end. You inevitably become a supporting actor simply because Cleopatra has got the last forty-odd minutes, so whatever you do with Antony, it’s difficult to ultimately control the impact of your character in the play. Understandably, some actors find that less attractive. I find it a great character because Antony for me embodies the Renaissance ideal. I would define that as a Greek mind in a Roman body. On the one hand, he’s a great soldier, a great athlete, with great physical prowess, and, on the other hand, he’s a man of fine intellect, he’s a great lover, somebody who is attracted to music and the arts and culture—that’s the Renaissance ideal and that’s I think what Shakespeare was trying to seek out. I would suggest that was less attractive in the 1990s than it was in, say, the 1950s.
Murray: I think that’s a very interesting question. The obvious, crude answer is that he dies in the fourth act and the fifth act is sublime, and if Cleopatra is any good she’s going to be the memory people take from the show. But I think it’s rather more than that. I think it’s a man in a breakdown, who has reached a certain moment in his life where he suddenly splits apart, and by the time he loses the last battle he’s nowhere, he’s all at sixes and sevens. And it is all connected to love, the love of
eros
. He becomes enthralled with this woman andhe throws away his entire career. So it is in one sense a very anti-heroic role. It’s something very hard, if an actor is going to play it properly, for an actor of the right age, which is middle age beginning to pass into older middle age, to actually face that midlife crisis. It needs a very special kind of actor to do that.
Doran: I think that’s because nobody, I believe, had quite realized what a fantastic part Antony was until Patrick Stewart got hold of it. It was a part I wanted him to play and a part which he seized with both hands. Olivier had called Antony a “twerp” and said that that was the problem of playing him. Patrick Stewart saw that that was the great
opportunity
of playing him, in that Antony does act in almost as capricious a way as Cleopatra does. He played him as this man who can no longer quite live up to his PR, who has lived his life as the center of attention but is no longer able to endure the spotlight. Follow the imagery in the play of shadows and clouds, and the ephemeral nature of life. Antony himself has a great moment when he realizes that he can no longer live up to his own image; right at the end when he thinks he has been betrayed by Cleopatra he says to Eros:
Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock, A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs:
They are black
Antony Sher once said that Antony bored him but that he’d like to play Cleopatra! Why do you think there are more women (and men?!) keen to play Cleopatra than men to play Antony ?
Noble: It’s a better part! Cleopatra is a great, great part. Antony is a very good part. Hamlet is a great part, King Lear is a great part, Antony is a very good part. Something rather curious has happened in terms of fashion, though, because it was regarded, when, for example, Anthony Quayle played it, as one of the benchmark characters that an actor could play. So your question really is why in a
modern
world is it not regarded so highly? I have to put on record, however, that Michael Gambon enjoyed playing Antony much more than he enjoyed playing Lear. He loved playing Antony. So it’s not a universal view.
I think there are one or two practical things relating to Antony, like the fact that he’s not there at the end. You inevitably become a supporting actor simply because Cleopatra has got the last forty-odd minutes, so whatever you do with Antony, it’s difficult to ultimately control the impact of your character in the play. Understandably, some actors find that less attractive. I find it a great character because Antony for me embodies the Renaissance ideal. I would define that as a Greek mind in a Roman body. On the one hand, he’s a great soldier, a great athlete, with great physical prowess, and, on the other hand, he’s a man of fine intellect, he’s a great lover, somebody who is attracted to music and the arts and culture—that’s the Renaissance ideal and that’s I think what Shakespeare was trying to seek out. I would suggest that was less attractive in the 1990s than it was in, say, the 1950s.
Murray: I think that’s a very interesting question. The obvious, crude answer is that he dies in the fourth act and the fifth act is sublime, and if Cleopatra is any good she’s going to be the memory people take from the show. But I think it’s rather more than that. I think it’s a man in a breakdown, who has reached a certain moment in his life where he suddenly splits apart, and by the time he loses the last battle he’s nowhere, he’s all at sixes and sevens. And it is all connected to love, the love of
eros
. He becomes enthralled with this woman andhe throws away his entire career. So it is in one sense a very anti-heroic role. It’s something very hard, if an actor is going to play it properly, for an actor of the right age, which is middle age beginning to pass into older middle age, to actually face that midlife crisis. It needs a very special kind of actor to do that.
Doran: I think that’s because nobody, I believe, had quite realized what a fantastic part Antony was until Patrick Stewart got hold of it. It was a part I wanted him to play and a part which he seized with both hands. Olivier had called Antony a “twerp” and said that that was the problem of playing him. Patrick Stewart saw that that was the great
opportunity
of playing him, in that Antony does act in almost as capricious a way as Cleopatra does. He played him as this man who can no longer quite live up to his PR, who has lived his life as the center of attention but is no longer able to endure the spotlight. Follow the imagery in the play of shadows and clouds, and the ephemeral nature of life. Antony himself has a great moment when he realizes that he can no longer live up to his own image; right at the end when he thinks he has been betrayed by Cleopatra he says to Eros:
Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A towered citadel, a pendent rock, A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t that nod unto the world
And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs:
They are black
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