Summary 
Interesting black-box production with focus not on a love story or a romantic tragedy, but on the consequences befalling a mid-life sexual infatuation (Antony) and a pragmatic political manipulation with overtones of control by sexual favor (Cleopatra). Antony is played as a maturing gentleman clinging to reckless youth, quickness to anger, laughing too loudly, and a bit of excess in his passions. Cleopatra is a spoiled queen trying to use a foreign politician to her best advantage while also dallying with him, and her volatile emotions seem almost juvenile, like a pre-teen falling in love for the first time. Sparse staging - colorful carpeting and exotic lights - but some strong supporting performances, especially a creepy Caesar with a repellent physical urge for his sister Octavia, an achingly loyal Enorbarbus devastated by his own act of betrayal, and a sexy attendant Charmian who follows her Queen down the path of self-sacrifice. The conclusion brings a heavy reckoning to the title characters, mostly due to avoidance of military and political dishonor rather than anguish over the loss of true love.
Design
Directed by Gary Griffin. Designed by Charlotte Dean. Lighting design by Michael Walton. Sound design by Peter McBoyle.
Cast
Geraint Wyn Davies (Mark Antony), Yanna McIntosh (Cleopatra), Ben Carlson (Caesar), Tom McCamus (Enobarbus), Sean Arbuckle (Mecenas), Daniel Briere (Eros), Carmen Grant (Octavia), Randy Hughson (Lepidus), Peter Hutt (Agrippa), Jennifer Mogbock (Iras), Stephen Russell (Soothsayer), E.B. Smith (Alexas/Proculeius), Brian Tree (Pompey/ Clown), Sophia Walker (Charmian).
Analysis
Gary Griffin's Antony and Cleopatra at the Tom Patterson Theatre plays less like a true-love tragedy than as comeuppance for two deeply-flawed cheaters. Geraint Wyn Davies' Antony is a graying adulterer mired in a mid-life crisis and clinging to the last dangerous entertainments and indulgences of youth, wearing his hair in a too-young spiky uncombed look, a little heavy-set perhaps in his prosperity. He wears a golden robe, is attended by no less than eight servants, and seems to laugh a little too loudly. Much like a dirty old man with an exotic younger woman, he gropes Cleopatra like a plaything, and when she helps armor him for the final battle 4.4, he feels her up lustily: "this is a solder's kiss." Antony's stormy, almost attention-deficit personality reveals sudden and violent anger: he seizes a red-robed messenger from Rome by the neck and throws him into a chair 2.1, throws a drink in Lepidus's face 2.7 for his crocodile tears, and orders a messenger who kisses Cleopatra's hand whipped - "I am Antony yet!" - in 3.13. His sense of honor to the military certainly seems to exceed his sense of honor in marriage, and Griffin shows him seated calmly on an elevated platform 2.2 like a politician within a summit conference and accepting an arranged marriage 2.3 as a political gambit. Davies' Antony happily cheats on both Fulvia and Octavia, rushing back to Cleopatra like a horn-dog teenager, but he kneels with his fellow solders 3.9, then lays himself prostrate onstage in shame for his loss: "whither hast thou led me, Egypt?"
Yanna McIntosh plays Cleopatra as similarly self-indulgent, but with a much wiser and more pragmatic political sense than Antony, and she manipulates him far more than he does her. Trim and athletic and appearing more youthful than Antony, she wears braids and bracelets and jewels, showing a good deal of skin and shimmering lustily 1.1 among bowls of fruit laid on the floor around an arrangement of rugs and carpets. Colorful light fixtures descend from above to light her black-box bedroom, seeming more a place for her seduction of Antony than a shared love nest. Whereas Davies' Antony seems like a quick-to-anger middle-aged man trying vainly - and in vain - to be a rutting young stud, McIntosh's Cleopatra seems like a once-young queen spoiled by a lifetime of riches and prone to adolescent and pre-adolescent snits. During 1.3 she pretends to be ill to keep him in Egypt, then lies down pouting to completely conceal herself with a blanket, before groaning melodramatically and rising to hurl a scroll across the stage. She storms away, and once he has exited, she is shown again 1.5 lying on her back, caressing a pillow as if it is Antony, smoking a hookah pipe and blowing smoke straight toward the ceiling. She straddles a pillow - "happy horse to bear Antony's weight" - and in 2.5 she must be carried onstage upon a small bed, devastated like a school girl by news of Antony's marriage to Octavia. She cuts off the high-pitched singing of a eunuch with a petulant wave of her hand, then assaults a messenger from Rome, first throwing jewels at him - "I do not like 'but yet'" - then knocking him to his knees, throwing him to the stage, and grabbing him as he crawls away. She even pulls a dagger, kneeling post-tantrum to cry like a child on her little bed.
Davies and McIntosh share some considerable chemistry, his Antony inflamed by her erotic allure, her Cleopatra thrilled at the powerful Roman she can manipulate. After the defeat at sea, Cleopatra and her attendants arrive upstage and drop to their hands and knees before him, but instead of punishing her, Davies' Antony kneels to envelop Cleopatra in an embrace. In 3.13, fueled by a jealous fury, he does the same, and they rock back and forth on their knees in a sexually-charged bear-hug - "where hast thou been, my heart?" - and Antony tries to rise but falls again as he swears to "mock the midnight bell." For 3.5 they gather in porn-movie midnight blue spot lighting, and during 4.4 the preparation for battle bears a sexual undertone - "thou art the army of my heart" - with Davies' Antony again seeming like an aging man with a shiny new sports car.
Griffin culls good performances for the supporting characters, but the veteran performers surely outstrip the minor impact of the roles. Ben Carlson plays Caesar as a morally twisted and rather petty accuser - "you have broken the articles of your oath!" - executing prisoners 3.1 with literal stabs in the back, and taking umbrage at the smallest slight 4.1: "he called me 'boy.'" Most revealingly, Carlson's Caesar stands between two marble columns to decry the morals of his former ally - "the adulterous Antony" - but he welcomes his corn-rowed and white-robed sister Octavius with a long and creepy kiss on the mouth, holding her tightly not with emotion but so she cannot squirm away from him. Tom McCamus's Enobarbus is also expertly realized, a sharp-eyed observer watching the titular lovers from the shadows at the edge of the stage or up in the balcony 3.6. Having lost his tactical 3.7 argument, McCamus's Enobarbus intuits why - "we are women's men" - and although he respects Antony - "he'll outstare the lightning" - he must betray him, and his resolve is given emphasis in its being followed immediately by the interval. Antony returns the respect in 4.5 when notified of the defection - "send treasure after" - and Enorbarbus's 4.6 soliloquy in which he sheds his armor to "seek a ditch to die" - is actually observed by Davies' Antony, shown standing solemnly at stage left. At his suicide, "Antony" is his final word before he is discovered by helmeted Roman soldiers in sandals and red robes. Similarly, Cleopatra's attendant Charmian is played with fierce loyalty plus an early-Cleopatra allure: 1.1 she wears a shimmering gold dress that is only connected on each side by loose bows, revealing long stretches of bare skin. Charmian makes lewd gestures 1.5 at Cleopatra's barely restrained lust, and she bows 5.2, head down, palms flat onstage, before Cleopatra gives her a final broken-hearted kiss goodbye.
The concluding scenes move quickly, especially the episodic lurch of the fifteen scenes comprising Act 4, but the tragic actions seem more a noble necessity than due to any real emotion. Davies' Antony enters 4.12 but starts to exit again upstage - "all is lost!" and makes a chilling revelation: "oh sun, thy uprise I shall see no more." When his servant Eros stabs himself 4.14 rather than kill Antony, Davies' defeated soldier lays him down and turns to his men, demanding "he who loves me, strike me dead," but he is held in such high honor that the men rush away. It takes six soldiers to carry Antony to Cleopatra after he stabs himself -"I am dying Egypt" - but she helps him stand upright on his own and kisses him. He dies on his back and is carried away, and McIntosh pulls a sword on the guards 5.3 before lying down on her bed and huddling with Iras and Charmian. She deceives Carlson's Caesar 5.2, crying out "my master and my lord!" then "not so" after he exits, dressing herself royally one last time in crown and robe and golden bracelets. She takes up one tiny rubbery asp then another, holding each to her breast for a fatal bite, but one gets the sense she is choosing to escape Caesar more than she is joining Antony. Charmian also induces a venomous snake bite as the guards arrive and call for Caesar, ending Griffin's quickly-paced but emotionally-distant tragedy.