Ten Reasons to Love Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra"

By Alicia Anstead

OHA Critic-in-Residence

Every time I read Shakespeare – and by “read” I mean drop myself imaginatively into the world of the characters – the play I’m reading becomes my favorite. As I direct my attention to the Stonington Opera House annual Shakespeare festival, my new favorite play is “Antony and Cleopatra.” (Move over “Coriolanus,” which was my favorite play last month.) I’m a little fickle that way – never landing definitively on any one of the Bard’s plays as a favorite for very long. It’s a little like trying to choose a favorite child: You shouldn’t do it because it lessens the value of the other kids. And in Shakespeare’s case, that’s upwards of 40 plays.

The best approach for me is to fall in love with a play every time I read it.

In an effort to get you to fall in love with “Antony and Cleopatra” – assuming you need a nudge – I’m sharing my Top Ten Reasons for Loving “Antony and Cleopatra.” The Stonington Opera House production of “Antony and Cleopatra” runs July 12-22 at the Burnt Cove Church in Stonington. But keep checking back here at Shake Stonington for interviews with Stacy Schiff, whose biography “Cleopatra” will be the focus of a book discussion June 20, for interviews with actors and scholars, and for more commentary and conversation about the play.

My Top Ten Reasons for Loving “Antony and Cleopatra”

1.     Cleopatra is hot. She’s got it all: money, power, sex, a great hairstyle. She's my new favorite historical character. 

2.     Antony is a real dude. He loves his woman, loves war and says crazy-sexy things to his lover like: “What sport to-night?” I know, I know: He's not such a great husband. And if he were, we'd have no drama. 

3.     Passion rules. These characters go for it every time – not just the leads but everyone. Even the servants. Things going badly for the master? I’ll kill myself, too. To the death!

4.     Morals be damned. Adultery never looked so appealing. It doesn’t end well. (Does it ever?) But Antony and Cleopatra are having a great time together. And it’s fun while it lasts.  

5.     Where are we now? A&C has 42 scenes. That’s more than any other of Shakespeare’s plays. The distance between Rome and Egypt has never been so easy to traverse.

6.     The fake death trick. It didn’t work for Romeo and Juliet, and it doesn’t work for Antony and Cleopatra either. But it’s fun to see Shakespeare still rolling out the technique. You can almost hear Cleopatra say: “Oh crap! What have I done now?”

7.     Watch out for the snake. [Spoiler alert!] Is that a European asp or an Egyptian asp? (With apologies to Monty Python.) Rumor has it that Opera House Arts is hiring a live snake for Cleopatra’s famous death-by-snake-bite scene. Only Cleopatra could have the cojones to share the stage with an animal -- and not get upstaged. 

8.     Middle-age star power. At the time of this play, both Antony and Cleopatra are middle-aged. Are they slowing down? Hell no! (They die in the end, but what a way to go.)

9.     If it's a tragedy, why am I laughing? The play has a structural similarity to Shakespeare’s comedies (flipping between Rome and Egypt is similar to flipping between the court and the forest, duty and freedom). And then there’s Enobarbus. The guy cracks me up. Plus he's deep.

10. The poetry rocks. Shakespeare had already written "Hamlet," "King Lear" and "Macbeth" by the time he wrote "Antony and Cleopatra." His poetry chops are hot.