a state of decline, and by that point it does indeed become pathetic.
8. “Simply by their being middle-aged”: Patrick Stewart as Antony and Harriet Walter as Cleopatra in Gregory Doran’s 2006 production. The warmth and maturity of their love is revealed in their shared sense of humor.
And does our sympathy for them depend on a rather chilly reading of the “boy Caesar,” not to mention poor Octavia ?
Noble: No, I don’t think so at all. I’m rather fascinated by Caesar and I hope I wasn’t particularly “chilly” about him. I think Shakespeare understood him, although of course Shakespeare was a great romantic and so the romance wins out. I think the love Antony and Cleopatra have for each other and the power of that love sometimes makes us pity them, but ultimately we do admire them. They have done such extraordinary things. Antony could squander his talents—he has so many! He can throw them down on the road for people to tread on, he has so many talents! He decides, “I’m not going to fight any more, I want to be with this woman,” and Shakespeare enables us to find huge sympathy for that.
Octavius is interesting because he is the guy who [when he became the Emperor Augustus] created Rome as we know it, as we think of it. The person who mapped out contemporary civilization. He was an absolute genius. Octavius, Napoleon, Alexander. There are two or three people in history who virtually single-handedly created a vision that lays down a blueprint for future generations, and Octavius was one of those people. That’s partly in Shakespeare and partly in history, but Shakespeare would have known that because he was a very well-read man. So there’s sympathy that lies with Octavius. He’s trying to do something extraordinary and unique, trying to create Pax Romana, trying to create the great civilization, trying to transform Greek ideas with practical, sustainable military and political solutions. And Antony was messing it up! That’s what I mean about how you have to come at it from each different point of view; we must feel the frustration that Octavius must feel, and we must feel the annoyance that Antony feels about Rome. So the play becomes a real three-legged stool rather than a two-legged stool with a wonky side where the third character is.
Murray: I think that the play must, to a certain extent, be concerned with the opposition of the Apollonian and the Dionysiac. It is in one sense reminiscent of Euripides’
The Bacchae
. What Shakespeare says in the play which makes it so extraordinary at the end is that love is more important than anything else and it transcends death. Caesar is in the play because he is the leader of the most efficient war machine man had ever known at that time, probably the most efficient ever. In order to be that leader you have to be what Antony presumably once was: ruthless, unemotional, stoic. All those things which we require of our leaders in battle. Therefore, compared with the humanizing of Antony and the erotic love charge of the play, he is going to appear unsympathetic. There’s no question about it. But you should find someone who in himself is entirely honorable—he is doing the job that he was born to do and he’s doing it well.
Doran: I think Shakespeare tests our sympathy for them, as he often does with the great characters. Just at the point where you’re feeling most sympathy for them, he makes them do something outrageous which challenges your patience and your ability to tolerate them.Cleopatra, of course, does that all the time, which is what makes her so delightful. I think John Hopkins’ success in the part of Octavius was to show him as not just chilly, but as loving Mark Antony, and being disappointed in him because he had been a role model for him. The extremity of his own reaction when Dercetus, hoping to gain some advantage, brings him the news of Antony’s death shocks Octavius. I think that’s a very potent moment. As always with
8. “Simply by their being middle-aged”: Patrick Stewart as Antony and Harriet Walter as Cleopatra in Gregory Doran’s 2006 production. The warmth and maturity of their love is revealed in their shared sense of humor.
And does our sympathy for them depend on a rather chilly reading of the “boy Caesar,” not to mention poor Octavia ?
Noble: No, I don’t think so at all. I’m rather fascinated by Caesar and I hope I wasn’t particularly “chilly” about him. I think Shakespeare understood him, although of course Shakespeare was a great romantic and so the romance wins out. I think the love Antony and Cleopatra have for each other and the power of that love sometimes makes us pity them, but ultimately we do admire them. They have done such extraordinary things. Antony could squander his talents—he has so many! He can throw them down on the road for people to tread on, he has so many talents! He decides, “I’m not going to fight any more, I want to be with this woman,” and Shakespeare enables us to find huge sympathy for that.
Octavius is interesting because he is the guy who [when he became the Emperor Augustus] created Rome as we know it, as we think of it. The person who mapped out contemporary civilization. He was an absolute genius. Octavius, Napoleon, Alexander. There are two or three people in history who virtually single-handedly created a vision that lays down a blueprint for future generations, and Octavius was one of those people. That’s partly in Shakespeare and partly in history, but Shakespeare would have known that because he was a very well-read man. So there’s sympathy that lies with Octavius. He’s trying to do something extraordinary and unique, trying to create Pax Romana, trying to create the great civilization, trying to transform Greek ideas with practical, sustainable military and political solutions. And Antony was messing it up! That’s what I mean about how you have to come at it from each different point of view; we must feel the frustration that Octavius must feel, and we must feel the annoyance that Antony feels about Rome. So the play becomes a real three-legged stool rather than a two-legged stool with a wonky side where the third character is.
Murray: I think that the play must, to a certain extent, be concerned with the opposition of the Apollonian and the Dionysiac. It is in one sense reminiscent of Euripides’
The Bacchae
. What Shakespeare says in the play which makes it so extraordinary at the end is that love is more important than anything else and it transcends death. Caesar is in the play because he is the leader of the most efficient war machine man had ever known at that time, probably the most efficient ever. In order to be that leader you have to be what Antony presumably once was: ruthless, unemotional, stoic. All those things which we require of our leaders in battle. Therefore, compared with the humanizing of Antony and the erotic love charge of the play, he is going to appear unsympathetic. There’s no question about it. But you should find someone who in himself is entirely honorable—he is doing the job that he was born to do and he’s doing it well.
Doran: I think Shakespeare tests our sympathy for them, as he often does with the great characters. Just at the point where you’re feeling most sympathy for them, he makes them do something outrageous which challenges your patience and your ability to tolerate them.Cleopatra, of course, does that all the time, which is what makes her so delightful. I think John Hopkins’ success in the part of Octavius was to show him as not just chilly, but as loving Mark Antony, and being disappointed in him because he had been a role model for him. The extremity of his own reaction when Dercetus, hoping to gain some advantage, brings him the news of Antony’s death shocks Octavius. I think that’s a very potent moment. As always with
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