There’s a great review up on Shakespeareances about the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s Antony and Cleopatra:
A particularly riveting scene is Act Two, Scene Two, when Antony (Matt Radford Davies) and Octavius (Patrick Kilpatrick) finally meet in a summit in Rome presided over by the third triumvir Lepidus (Dave Tabish). Their meeting starts tersely with Caesar’s “Welcome to Rome”; “Thank you;” “Sit”; “Sit, sir”; “Nay then”—and the two take their seats, monitoring whose butt makes first contact with his seat’s cushion. Kilpatrick’s demeanor as Octavius is stiffly intense; Davies’ Antony coils in a cautionary aspect. Octavius presses his complaints, most of which are the kind of unfactual spin we hear between Republicans and Democrats all the time. Antony casually dismisses the lesser of these and, on the more serious accusation of treason, offers a tempered apology not for breaking his oath but for neglecting it. This leads to Octavius’ officer Agrippa proposing the marriage of Antony to Octavius’ sister, Octavia. The manner of Kilpatrick’s speaking Octavius’s line “Yet if I knew what hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge o’th’world I would pursue it” suggests he is giving Agrippa his cue to propose the marriage. As Agrippa lays out the proposal, Kilpatrick’s Octavius stares steadfastly at Antony, closely monitoring every millimeter of movement in the face of Cleopatra’s self-professed lover. It’s a study Octavius doesn’t relinquish even after Antony agrees to the marriage—even in their later scene together after the wedding has concluded.
Read the whole article here.
