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REVIEW Review: OSF's 'Antony and Cleopatra' mixes comedy, tragedy By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 13, 2015 @ 5:37 pm By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 13, 2015 @ 5:37 pm » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2325,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> “Antony and Cleopatra” is a dizzying spectacle. It sprawls over two continents, several years and a wide palette of emotions. Perhaps it had to be all this to accommodate its twin themes — love and war — and its larger-than-life titular characters. For the production that opened the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s outdoor season Friday night in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre, set designer Richard L. Hay came up with a neat touch to guide us through the play’s 42 scenes as the plot meanders from Rome to Athens to Egypt and elsewhere: an electronic sign that tells us where we are. The device fits neatly into the contemporary/timeless design of the production’s world, in which characters carry assault rifles, and costumes range from combat fatigues to outfits that look as if they might be worn by Cher. The biggest question is always what kind of Cleopatra we’ll get. The Queen of the Nile belongs in the pantheon of Shakespeare’s great women characters, up there with Viola, Rosalind and Juliet. Miriam A. Laube’s mercurial Cleopatra is essentially a comic heroine. Draped in one lavish costume after another, she is sexy, haughty, jealous, passionate, insecure and seductive. She's often quite funny manipulating her man, lashing out at a messenger bearing bad news, fretting about the competition (Octavia Caesar, whom Cleopatra wants to believe is dwarfish, low of voice and creepy) and generally vamping up the stage to frequent laughs. Under Bill Rauch’s direction, the first three acts are predominantly comic. And indeed, the comic motifs are there.  Egypt, an exotic place of transformation, is to the patriarchal power of Rome as the forest of Arden is to Duke Frederick’s court in “As You Like It.” There are jokes, a funny drunk, a beaten servant, a macho drinking scene, sexual teasing, a clown. Antony’s loyal friend Enobarbus at times takes on the truth-telling function of a fool. There is even a sort of wedding in the end. As conflicted Antony, Derrick Lee Weeden is more convincing as a loverboy lolling around with his sweetheart in the Egyptian fleshpot than he is in his soldier role. He’s a commanding presence, and he’s supposed to be the world’s greatest warrior, but his voice sometimes quavers with so much emotion that some of his lines are hard to understand. “Antony and Cleopatra” is sometimes said to be a grown-up Romeo and Juliet, with Rome and Egypt instead of Montagues and Capulets and action that spirals out of control to a false suicide. But the Verona youngsters’ love was pure, whereas middle-aging Antony and Cleopatra, although the heat of their passion is never in doubt, both need each other for political reasons having to do with power politics and their different worlds. Rome is Mars, reason, law, order, realism and masculine honor. Egypt is Venus, emotion, passion, sexuality and feminine romance. Hay has represented these dualities with two large devices that dominate the stage: Corinthian columns for Rome, huge triangles for Egypt (suggesting pyramids?). David C. Woolard’s costumes represent the two camps with fatigues and battle gear for the Romans and ornate, colorful garb of indeterminate vintage for the Egyptians. Antony’s soldiers are distinguished from Caesar's by the red they wear. Antony’s tragedy is that he needs both worlds, and he can’t come down on one side or the other. Of course, if he were taking care of business instead of shacking up with his sex kitten, there would be no story. Cleopatra’s is that she’s on the wrong side of history. Even her proleptic imagination can’t stand against the power of Rome, which Elizabethans likened to England, and which is lurching toward world domination, empire and the dawn of Christianity. Jeffrey King makes a riveting Enobarbus, the tough, old soldier who offers Antony plain-spoken truth. There’s been some judicious paring of the text, and at a bit over three hours the play still drags just a bit near the end. Cleopatra’s death and transfiguration are highly theatrical, as befits a drama queen. In the end, love and war still don’t mix, but there is splendor in the ashes. Reach freelance writer Bill Varble at [email protected] . By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Jun. 13, 2015 @ 5:37 pm » Comment or view comments /* $( document ).ready(function() { // Jquery mobile is trying to style the button and leaving a blank gry button on top of a white button $("#viafouracoms .vf-comment-controls li.vf-right").html(' Submit '); });*/ » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Propel Marketing Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Mobile Site Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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