Review of: Antony and Cleopatra

In Darko Tresnjak's spaced out, concept-imposed production of Antony and Cleopatra for the Theatre for a New Audience, one must ask the question why are some things left up to chance while others are specifically programmed. For instance, why does one actor get a black-out after his character's death and thus disappear in the dark while another in the same disposition must rise like the undead and walk off in bright light? Situations of this nature run rampant in the passionless re-telling of this play about passion and often one wants to laugh for the wrong reasons. The biggest problem is with one half of the title characters. The international actor Marton Csokas, making his New York Theatre debut, brings an oddly whiny twang to his European accent as well as giving Antony a heavily toked marijuana haze to his actions. In the recently produced Rome for HBO, the actor James Purefoy also portrayed the famous warrior as drug-besotted but to the effect that made his actions or inactions work for the character. Unfortunately, Mr. Csokas, seems mostly just unfocused. That makes it very difficult for Laila Robins, the title's other half, to rouse much affection much less ardor for the well-built Mr. Csokas. Muscles are one thing, but for Cleopatra, brains and power must be just as abundant. Ms. Robins has some good scenes but none of them are with her Antony and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her re-do the role in a production of substance.

Many of the other actors do their best to come up with reasons why they're doing what they're doing but, like Antony at the Battle of Actium, a crew without a captain is doomed. Jeffrey Carlson's Octavius Caesar feels very much like a distracted third rate Anthony Andrews reprising his Sebastian Flyte. John Douglas Thompson doesn't realize who his character, Enobarbus, is, or if he does, doesn't know how to convey him and Erik Singer as the Soothsayer, Mardian and Euphronius needs to see more of the future and less of the Addams Family. Even the accomplished George Morfogen in one of his two roles gets an unintentional laugh by not exactly exiting when he should. The rest, almost all of whom must play dual roles, believe that applying a mustache will do the trick of fooling us into thinking they're someone else. Even the lovely set by Alexander Dodge works against the production. When you put a pool in that eats up your downstage center, you're led into a trap of having to use it in some way at all times. I wanted to shout at some point, "last one in is a rotten Roman!" As for York Kennedy's lighting, flashing the dimmers in the Moroccan lanterns to affect flickering is really annoying. Costume Designer Linda Cho at least gets the concept clear and executes it with some flair.

As for placing the production in 1884 when the term, according to the program, "The Scramble for Africa" was coined, Mr. Tresnjak truly seems to have missed the boat. Although the results may have looked the same then as they possible might have in Roman times, the politics and the nature of the beast were completely different. There may have been a reason that could have worked for doing Shakespeare's historical tragedy with this term in mind but somewhere along the way Mr. Tresnjak lost the thread. Granted, this is not an easy play, but I think it was Cleopatra herself who said when it's not working apply more mascara.

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