Summary 
Elegantly staged but lacking in excitement, this production focuses on Antony's conflict between lust for Cleopatra and loyalty and call of duty to a frail Caesar and the Roman Empire. Strong performances, with the Egyptian queen aging and cerebral rather than sensual and alluring, and especially the honorable Antony, torn between exotic opulence and military responsibility.
Design
Directed by Barbara Gaines. Set by James Noone. Costumes by Nan Cibula-Jenkins. Lights by Christopher Akerlind. Sound by JR Conklin. Original songs and music by Alaric Jans. Wigs and make-up by Richard Jarvie. Fights by Robin McFarquhar. Choreography by Harrison MacEldowney.
Cast
Mark Montgomery (Philo/Menas/Proculeius), Lisa Dodson (Cleopatra), Kevin Gudahl (Antony), Susan Hart (Charmian), Greg Vinkler (Soothsayer/Pompey/Clown), Larry Yando (Enobarbus), Scott Parkinson (Octavius Caesar), Brad Armacost (Lepidus/Thidius), Neil Friedman (Maecenas), Robert Scogin (Agrippa), McKinley Carter (Octavia), Matthew Carter (Eros).
Analysis
Chicago Shakespeare Theater, since 1986 known as Shakespeare Repertory, inaugurates its newly constructed Navy Pier facility with Antony and Cleopatra. A fiber-optic marquee lights the pier near a towering Ferris wheel. The building boasts glass walls with views of Chicago's skyline and Lake Michigan, and the three-tiered theater - patterned after the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon - features lightly stained ash wood, intimate candle-like interior lighting, and does not have a seat more than thirty feet from its thrust stage.
Artistic director Barbara Gaines focuses on the contrast between the sensual indolence of Cleopatra's Egypt, with characters costumed in white and gold and lounging to music from a lyre, and Caesar's Rome, with its military characters costumed in black and silver, plotting their warfare to martial drumbeats.
Gaines depicts Antony's seduction in the opening scene. A ceiling-high gold curtain adorns upstage and flows down a gilded staircase. Between shimmering columns, Antony joins Cleopatra and her courtiers atop the stairs. As incense burns, they delight in watching a pair of near-naked, suggestive dancers. When Antony moves away to dance with a young girl, Cleopatra jealously takes her place, and the two lovers gyrate together, then passionately kiss before they entwine and sink to the floor. They are halted from copulating only by the arrival of a herald from Caesar, at whom Cleopatra sneers.
The head-shaven Kevin Gudahl portrays a strong and articulate Antony, torn between lust and the call to duty. In Egypt, where he is "idleness itself," Antony lounges in white robes with a collar-like gold necklace. In Rome, he swaggers in black clothing and boots, a small gold earring the only sign of his obsession. Gaines bolsters Gudahl's performance with a veteran supporting cast that ably plays a black-hooded Soothsayer, his eyes filmed cataract white, summoning jets of flame from his divining bowl, and Enobarbus, who abandons Antony at a crucial juncture.
Lisa Dodson portrays the "royal witch" Cleopatra as a petulant prima donna in fear of advancing age and fading charms. She clings to her hold on Antony as if his devotion proves her vibrancy. Her Egyptian court includes three raven-haired maidens, all of whom resemble their queen, so the vain Cleopatra possesses mirror images of herself. The women luxuriate upon golden blankets, lazily splashing water in a downstage pool, and they listen to a lyre, enjoy breezes from feather fans, and eat from bowls of grapes.
In an illustrative 1.5, Dodson's Cleopatra seems manic-depressive when her pining quickly turns into anger, and she nearly drowns a kneeling messenger in the pool when he delivers bad news. When the messenger returns to inform her of Antony's marriage to Octavia in 2.5, he submissively places his head in the pool to avoid further violence.
A limping and slight Caesar relies upon Antony's strengths to compensate for his own weaknesses. He appears out of place among the angry Romans, who thump their chests with fists in salutes as they prepare for war with Pompey. During the 2.6 negotiations, Pompey guffaws with such force that the diminutive Caesar covers an ear. The truce evolves into the 2.7 celebration as the former antagonists together sing "drink, drink, drink like a soldier" while warriors rise from traps to beat drums and drink from bowls of wine. Antony revels at the celebration's center, despite fears "he will to his Egyptian dish again": he saves the clownish Lepides from a drunken stumble; he pounds a drum, then raises a goblet to lead a shout of, "hail Caesar!"; he is hoisted high in the air by Enobarbus; and as Caesar, in a coughing fit, leaves the circle of dancers, Antony dances with a wine bowl atop his head.
Gaines reveals Antony's cooperation with Caesar as being dubious at best. Antony appears high upon a ladder at stage right after Caesar is shown atop a similar ladder across the set at stage left. With spotlights providing the only illumination, the two leaders shout orders and oversee naval efforts, as mentally distanced as they are physically apart.
The second act begins with Roman soldiers marching down the upstage stairs to martial fanfare in a mirror image to the play's opening sequence. Descending last, Caesar looks sullen, as if pouting, and stumbles with a bandaged leg.
Gudahl's Antony responds to potential war against Rome with chagrin ("whither hast thou led me, Egypt?"), then with thunder: "I am Antony yet." When he spurns Thidias in 3.13, he hurls the messenger across the stage with such force that Thidias falls down the stage steps and into the audience. In 4.4, Cleopatra replaces Eros and lovingly helps Antony don his armor. War with Caesar begins as shouts erupt from the upstage stairs and stage fog rolls in from the sides of the set. Traps open to reveal red ditches, and scarlet lighting flickers as original music swells and roars.
Gaines depicts little actual warfare, emphasizing the conflict within Antony. When he appears in 4.12, losing but still battling, and betrayed by both Cleopatra ("the witch shall die") and Enobarbus, Gudahl's Antony appears as if he truly could "outstare the lightning." He throttles and chokes Cleopatra at the top of the stairs while amplified laughter echoes around him, but he cannot bring himself to kill her.
The production drives toward its conclusion with Antony's 4.14 suicide attempt, and Antony appears emotionally battered rather than physically defeated. Cleopatra ceremoniously emerges from upstage, elevated and enthroned upon a slowly shifting dais, accompanied by her maidens. Wearing a royal gown, a golden cap and ankle bracelets, Cleopatra seems in repose with her "immortal longings." Antony dramatically re-appears from a center stage trap, bleeding and climbing to lie - and die - at Cleopatra's feet, while candles burn and incense smoke drifts around them.
Dodson's Cleopatra, more cerebral and less sensual than the more typical Queen of the Nile, shows acerbic wit rather than coquettish pride, and she excels in her final scenes. Her character seems to mature and transcend itself with the tragedy, whereas Gudahl's Antony suffers physical as well as emotional defeat. Once Cleopatra's ubiquitous maidens are bitten and poisoned, she dies as well, seated upright and apparently resolved with - and elevated by - their fate. When Caesar appears and removes the crown from her head, the ceiling above roils with stage fog, as if the "new heaven, new earth" themselves mourn the sundering of Antony from Cleopatra.
Gaines' staging of Antony and Cleopatra exceeds the text of this rather ponderous play, and with Gudahl's powerhouse Antony supported by a seasoned cast, Chicago Shakespeare Theater manages an impressive "debut."
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 2, Spring 2000.