Antony and Cleopatra - Review

National Theatre, London


****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Simon Godwin

Sophie Okonedo and Ralph Fiennes

It’s all very well for director Simon Godwin to project his Antony and Cleopatra into the modern era but for one gaping hole in the logic. Whilst the costumes and the weaponry (Kalashnikovs, really?) may be 21st Century, neither the Italy nor the Egypt of today, save for their respective antiquities, resemble anything like their illustrious glories from millennia past. This play skips over the inconvenient modernities that Italy is broken and Egypt impoverished, but misquoting Mark Twain, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

And truly, this is a ripping yarn. As “a pair so famous”, Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo are the titular magnificents. Perfectly cast, Fiennes the grizzled, patrician warrior Antony bears a love for Cleopatra that is almost tangible in its devotion. As much as Fiennes brings an impasssioned wisdom to his role, so too does Okonedo command the stage with a powerful petulance, their mutual, eternal devotion well elicited by Godwin.

There is fine supporting work too. Tim McMullan’s Enobarbus is a work of art in itself, his description of Cleopatra’s Royal Barge and of her beauty, delivered with a rarely encountered richness. In a neat gender-twist, Katy Stephens takes on Agrippa, creating a brief but plausible chemistry with Enobarbus as she outlines her plans for Antony’s wedding to Octavia, while in Cleopatra’s court, Gloria Obianyo is a touching Charmian.

The technical values of the production offer up our National Theatre at its very best. Michael Bruce’s music (delivered beautifully by the side-staged 5 piece band) draws from a variety of themes, with just a delicious hint of Ron Goodwin too during a military moment. 

Hildegard Bechtler’s set design proves to be a veritable chocolate box of surprises. Making fine use of the Olivier’s drum revolve (even if some of the below level scene-shifting could be quieter) Bechtler effortlessly shifts the action to and fro across the Mediterranean, even creating an ornate pond in Cleopatra’s palace. Elsewhere, in place of his originally scripted galley,  Pompey (Sargon Yelda) is given a submarine from which to command his fleet. And a nod to the heart-warmingly cute (and non-venomous) milk snake, called upon to double as an asp, which comes close to stealing the final scene!

At three and a half hours all in Antony and Cleopatra is a long haul, but with Fiennes and Okonedo making Shakespeare’s verse sing, there are moments here to be savoured.

Runs until 19th January 2019 in repertory

To be screened via NTLive on 6th December

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Teh Internet is Serious Business - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

***

Written by Tim Price

Directed by Hamish Pirie

In 2011, a small group of hackers affiliated with Anonymous and calling themselves ‘LulzSec’ (a contraction of ‘laughing at security’) embarked on a short reign of mischief  targetting the websites of Fox, Sony, PBS and eventually the FBI and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency. At the heart of Teh Internet is Serious Business is the tale of LulzSec's youngest members – teenagers Jake Davis and Mustafa Al-Bassam – as they are slowly drawn into an online world that seems to free them from the mundanity and struggle of reality.

But this is no conventional narrative drama. Without a computer or untidy bedroom in sight, Hamish Pirie and designer Chloe Lamford have re-imagined the dark underbelly of the internet as the protagonists themselves see it: a kaleidoscopic big-kids’ playground, complete with multi-coloured ball pit and bristling with anarchic energy. The world of the internet chatroom is literally brought to life, ‘Condescending Willy Wonka’ dances around with ‘Grumpy Cat’ and Rick Astley appears through a trapdoor any time someone is ‘Rickrolled’.

How well this central conceit works probably depends to a great extent on the audience’s familiarity and sympathy with internet culture (beginning with the in-joke of the misspelt title). Despite a handy glossary in the programme of hacker terminology and online memes, I’d have thought much of the piece would still be utterly baffling to a large number of people and indeed both directly in front of and behind me in the audience were people aged 50 and over, neither group returning after the interval.

For those more versed in the culture, the necessary spoon feeding of various concepts and conceits felt a touch episodic at times. The first half, in particular, feels more like a series of sketches – Memes! Pirate Bay! Anonymous! Trolling! – and after the audience has got over the initial bursts of energy there is a danger that ‘acting out’ every last chatroom post and hack can start to have a slightly simplistic feel to it. 

The fifteen strong cast are uniformly excellent, but the nature of the piece leaves most dealing in stereotypes and clichés. Whilst the onstage madness does a wonderful job of representing the anarchy of the internet, it offers little chance to invest in any of the characters. Kevin Guthrie and Hamza Jeetooa bring warmth and humanity to the two teenage hackers and Sargon Yelda is excellent in a variety of roles – the best as a man whose life is turned upside down by hackers and who, in the play’s funniest song, is mocked for using the same password for every online account.

Teh Internet is Serious Business is at times very funny, wonderfully energetic and even genuinely poignant. There is, however, the slight suspicion that the overall concept, brilliant and ingenious as it is, leaves some fascinating and moving human stories only half told.

Runs until 25th October 2014