Theatre review: Antony & Cleopatra (National Theatre)

Ralph Fiennes has a tendency to use his fame to get himself cast in roles he's always wanted to play - his Richard III was something he himself pitched to the Almeida, and this time it's the National staging a huge production at his request. This one's a bit more of an unusual bucket list role though, as he's always wanted to star in Antony & Cleopatra - and not as Cleopatra. Instead Fiennes is Antony, a male lead notorious for being completely overshadowed by his female counterpart (Nothing Like A Dame even features a whole conversation about how none of the Dames know an actor who didn't hate playing him.) Instead it's Sophie Okonedo who gets the plum role of Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen who'd already taken Julius Caesar as her lover before doing the same with his successor. The affairs might have been motivated by politics as she sought to keep the powerful Roman Empire on her side, but as Shakespeare sees it at least, the relationship with Antony turned into something real.

News of the death of Antony's wife back in Rome is cause for celebration for the jealous Cleopatra, but things soon turn sour for them both personally and politically: Antony's power isn't absolute but shared with two others, and Octavius Caesar (Tunji Kasim) in particular constantly clashes with him.

Katy Stephens' Agrippa suggests the classic diplomatic solution, of marrying Antony off to Caesar's sister Octavia (Hannah Morrish) but this backfires when the two men's power games escalate into war with Octavia stuck in the middle, and Antony's loyalties still clearly belong with Cleopatra. And it's no wonder - Okonedo is right up there with Eve Best as the best portrayals I've seen. The original drama queen, her Cleopatra is quite genuinely prone to violent mood swings, but she's also an expert at alternately dishing out and withholding her favours as a way of keeping everyone, not just Antony, in her thrall.

But the truism about Antony & Cleopatra is that the problem with the play is that there's all these scenes without Cleopatra, and although it does a better job of getting over it than most, Simon Godwin's production still starts to drag whenever it focuses on anyone other than her. It's not helped by Kasim's portrayal of Caesar having no discernible personality at all, but elsewhere the casting provides a lot of highlights: Notably Gloria Obianyo, whose Charmian has a quick wit and steeliness that makes it clear why Cleopatra would have chosen her as one of her closest companions, rather than her coming across as just one of her servants.

Expanding the role of Eros to include a couple of other servants and messengers also allows Fisayo Akinade to create a character the audience can embrace, and indeed whose death affects them more than the male lead's (I wonder if the point when all those actors regret playing Antony is when they realise his tragic suicide always gets one of the biggest laughs of the night?) Cleopatra dragging Eros through the ornamental pond that forms a centrepiece of Hildegard Bechtler's set is one of the more memorable scenes of the evening.

In fact one of the areas where Godwin's production is strongest is in bringing to the fore the people caught in the crossfire of the title characters' epic romance, and the scene where Thidias (Sam Woolf) is whipped for kissing Cleopatra's hand is made even more of an example of Antony's needless cruelty when he pours vodka into the wounds. This also makes the later scene of Antony permitting Scarus (Alexander Cobb) to kiss her hand stand out - maybe it's the fact that men taking ownership over women's bodies is even more in the news than ever lately, but it's noticeable that he punishes someone for touching her with her own permission, but reserves the right to give out that permission himself.

Although it's a typically blocky set design from Bechtler it does include one particularly impressive use of the Olivier's Drum revolve, and the modern military costume design from Evie Gurney makes Tim McMullen's Enobarbus more obviously the grizzled old soldier than he usually comes across. It also makes for a nice way of defining the Triumvirate in a modern way, making Antony the head of the Army, Caesar the Navy and Lepidus the Air Force - also a great bit of foreshadowing that Antony should have fought Caesar on land rather than at sea.

Godwin's usual fresh eye for Shakespeare - including ideas like having Octavia be the one sent to confront Cleopatra in her monument - means the play doesn't end up being quite the slog it can be whenever the queen is offstage, but at three-and-a-half hours it's still got plenty of moments that drag, particularly in the second half. But apart from some miscasting the problems are largely the play's own rather than the production's, and the decision to use a real live snake for the climax (too late for Voldemort to talk to it,) gives the audience one last little thrill to push the energy levels up. Godwin can't solve all the play's problems but he gives it a good try, and it's a reminder that the director will be missed over here now he's been headhunted to run an American theatre.

Antony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare is booking in repertory until the 19th of January at the National Theatre's Olivier.

Running time: 3 hours 25 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.