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

[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."