the god abandons antony

[ellenkushner]

All those within the sound of my voice: RUN AND GET TICKETS TO ANTONY & CLEOPATRA at Theatre for a New Audience!! It's playing on 42nd St through May 2, and there are still TDF tix (if you're a member) up through April 27th. Best of all, if you're under 25, tix are only $10! I haven't seen Shakespeare this good in a long time - and this play is so rarely performed, it's a real treat. The acting is wonderful - they do things with the old lines that really let them breathe and speak afresh - and the director is a goddam genius. Plus he's added some magic: the God (who is also the Soothsayer) walks through the stage from time to time, and stirs the waters of a small pool in the middle with his staff. It's a tragedy, sure, but they're all so over the top that there's nothing for them but death, so I maintained my composure -- until the very end, when ol' Darko threw in an image that utterly dropped me. The Enobarbus was a joy - I loved that actor as LeBret in Kevin Kline's recent Cyrano, too - and Octavius Caesar was young, gorgeous, and properly nerveless and chilling. (deliasherman will probably blog and say something more intelligent about all this soon.)

And I'd forgotten that some of my favorite lines came from the last act: The bright day is done, and we are for the dark . . . and of course, I wish you joy o' th' worm! . . . And I'd forgotten that in IV, iii the God leaves Antony, leaves Alexandria - just as he does in the beautiful poem by Cavafy (here are a couple more translations - the best, I think, may be in the 2001 translation of all his work by Theoharis C. Theoharis, still too much in copyright to be posted here). The story supposedly came from Plutarch - and most of Shakespeare's details certainly did!

Leonard Cohen turned The God Abandons Anthony into an exquisite song called "Alexandra Leaving" - listen to it if you get the chance.

Comments

[snakey.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Alexandra Leaving was based on that - thanks for the info! :) Though now I reread it it's patently bloody obvious....

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I had the album and loved the song, and after enough repetitions started noticing the actual lyrics and saying, "Hey - that sounds familiar...!" I was very proud of myself for figuring it out.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt!

Didn't I tell you? It's marvellous.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You did, Oscar, you did.

We might have to go see it again.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

I loved how Octavian's voice cracked when he said "He calls me 'boy'!"

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I love the way so many of Cleopatra's lines were imperious tossed-off comments. He really understands not making everything DRAMAtic - also the party scenes with all the guys being frat boy-ish cleaving to the text, making it seem clear that this was how it was meant to be all along.

Of course, he edited like crazy. But it made a streamlined, elegant, coherent piece.

And it still took a hell of a lot of Listening: as my beloved Shakespeare teacher said, "They were called AUDIENCE because they were taking it in AURALLY."

[krismcd59.livejournal.com]

I've taught A&C twice this semester, to undergrads and grads -- it's about to supplant Lear as my Favorite Shakespeare Play. Shakespeare really didn't create a more sympathetic and detailed character study than this -- I always want to know about the boy who Shakespeare wrote the part for; in Donne's words, what a miracle [s]he was! Robert Nye wrote a delightful, bawdy, touching novel called "The Late Mr. Shakespeare," narrated by that boy actor, nicknamed Pickleherring, in his later years. Not to be missed.

[thumbelinablues.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed that show -- A&C is one of the (few!) plays I've never seen, studied, or even read, so I just about DIED when Eros stabbed himself instead of Antony. I'll always the remember the first time I was truly shocked by live Shakespeare....

The image at the end that 'dropped' you -- was it that thing at the very, very end, seconds before the lights go out?! (This reminds me, I wrote something right after I saw the show and squirreled it away...must post.)

catullus

[(Anonymous)]

Leonard Cohen, probably following TS Eliot's dictum that 'Bad poets borrow; good poets steal' turned 'The God Abandons Antony' into a marvellous song but Cavafy seems to have totally usurped the original by the ancient Roman poet Catullus. Check it out.

Winky

burberry bags

[(Anonymous)]

A good post to read ,thanks for your work !
[url=http://www.longchamp2012.com] [longchamp outlet|longchamp bags|longchamp handbags|longchamp sale}[/url]