Shortly after accepting this gig from MSC's maverick Artistic Director, Jennifer Sarah Dean, I stumbled upon a sentence that read: "Antony and Cleopatra is impossible to direct". 

 

Indeed. Staging over 40 rapid-fire scenes populated by 34 named characters in a story that bounces wildly between Egypt, Rome and parts of Greece and expecting an audience to track the enormity of the geopolitical stakes involved amidst the volatile interpersonal drama unfolding between two historic icons - it makes sense that it's one of the least performed of Shakespeare's best beloved tragedies. Which idiot would put up their hand to helm this colossus?

 

And yet for all that, this work and its myriad possibilities was immediately compelling - probably because it is a wild, genre-bending ride comprised of characters who lived and breathed upon this earth. Their history beggars belief. The more I dove into it, the more clearly Cleopatra revealed herself in defiance of the way she is so often depicted: i.e. as an idea, an ideal, an exoticised outline, the ultimate femme fatale whose mercurial power over Antony unmans him. This is a woman who spoke ten languages and was a renowned scholar; who survived two brother-husbands in the blood sport that was Ptolemaic dynastic history to claim the throne of Egypt via a tactical relationship with Julius Caesar; who groomed their son to be the natural successor of both empires; and whose subsequent relationship with Mark Antony was one of history's most consequential political alliances. It enraged me that she exists most often in the cultural imaginary splayed on a chaise, legs and breasts akimbo.

 

I imagined how it would also have enraged those closest to her - how it would grate Charmian, her closest confidante and, according to Plutarch, her chief of staff - and it gave me the frame for this adaptation. Reinstating Cleopatra as a fiercely political animal equal to any of her counterparts enlivens the narrative for all its key players: it intensifies the pressure on Antony and poses a formidable force for Octavius to counter. The events of the play are no longer historical inevitabilities; the precarity of two evenly positioned superpowers facing off across a narrow strait of water can be felt more acutely. Cleopatra and Antony's fates were determined in a 'sliding doors' moment; if not for Agrippa, it could all have played out differently.

 

I am so grateful to the heroic team of artists and creatives who have undertaken to realise the epic dimensions of this reimagining with me within the intimacy of fortyfivedownstairs, and constraints of an independent theatre budget. Bringing Cleopatra and Antony (back) to life requires no small degree of courage, conviction and stamina. And perhaps not coincidentally, capital L Love - the guiding principle and current of the play itself. We look forward to sharing our vision with you.

​

- Sonya Suares (Director)