Antony & Cleopatra

The Little Fish is an offshoot of the Southern Youth Theatre Ensemble who have gone on to specialise in no-frills productions of The Bard’s work that are typically stripped back to the bare necessities in terms of production values, and usually involve a fair bit of gender-flipped casting in order to accommodate the company’s largely female ensemble. It is all too easy to be cynical about projects such as their latest staging of Antony & Cleopatra – as with most Youth Theatre, it requires the audience to be more generous in their suspension of disbelief than they normally would be, in order to accept actors playing characters significantly older than themselves. Also, as is typical of Youth Theatre productions, it requires that the audience exercise their imagination in order to flesh out the splendour of Ancient Egypt & Rome, something which such a small scale project can only hint at impressionistically. Still, those willing to check their cynicism at the door are likely to find much to admire about The Little Fish’s latest effort, which brings the emotional conflict at the heart of the play to life with chillingly intelligent precision, and delivers Shakespeare’s immortal poetry with arresting eloquence, for the most part.

Russell Slater has the required rakish swagger to portray Antony, the burnt-out hedonist, but invests enough nuance into his performance that the audience can clearly see the wounded nobility beneath his debauched macho posturing. He’s well matched with Amelia Lorien Dembowski’s Cleopatra, whose performance is equal parts brazen sensuality, haughty snobbery, childish neediness and pitiful myopia. The two have a disturbingly intense chemistry, the neurotically co-dependent and emotionally manipulative nature of their relationship coming across without undermining the visceral, raw physical attraction that exists between the two characters.

The supporting cast also hit the right emotional notes. Christopher Searle makes for a cold, calculating Caesar, whose intellectual acumen is as intimidating, in its own way, as Antony’s hyper-masculine physicality. Roan Redelinghuys has a consistently amusing aptitude for deadpan snark as Antony’s cynical lieutenant, Enobarbus, but is also convincingly tortured in later scenes which call upon the character to wrestle with his compromised loyalty and self-doubt. Ian Seymour-White is also a standout in the dual role of fiery, hotheaded soldier, Scarus and ineffectual political operator, Lepidus. Many of the soldiers and courtiers that fill out the cast are played by women, who make no effort to hide their femininity with make up or by assuming a gruff voice, still, it is not hard to believe in them given the depth of their emotional commitment to the roles.

A few tables and chairs are the only sets to speak of, but they get the job done well enough and the lighting design clearly delineates the transition from one scene to the next. The costumes are suggestive of the period, rather than being strictly historically accurate, but are nonetheless striking in their use of colour.

Antony & Cleopatra is not one of The Bard’s most frequently performed plays, and Shakespeare aficionados who can forgive this production’s lack of lavish spectacle and gender-blind casting should take the time to check it out, in handling the themes of the story, this is a work of great integrity.

Benjamin Orchard