Antony and Cleopatra – Holland Festival

Mention one of their names and the other inevitably follows. Mark Antony and Cleopatra, forever a couple. Their relationship mixed love and politics in such a way they invented the politics of love. Shakespeare wrote about them, as did the Greek philosopher Plutarch. In 1963 Joseph L. Mankiewicz made the monumental film Cleopatra, starring Elisabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The Portuguese theatre maker Tiago Rodrigues, whose work is described as subversive and poetic, uses all these sources in a theatrical quest for the core of this doomed love between an Egyptian queen and a Roman leader. Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz play a contemporary Antony and Cleopatra. Together they create an amusing and moving universe in which the roles are reversed.

Tiago Rodrigues’ production of Antony and Cleopatra is a contemporary version of an age-old love story about the Roman general Mark Antony and the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra.

In the year 41 (BC) a republican general is assigned to the eastern part of the Roman Empire and a young Egyptian queen is afraid her people will be subjected. The two meet and become lovers for a turbulent period of ten years. Mutual passion leads to their downfall, but combining love and politics they discover a politics of love.

Director and theatre maker Rodrigues has written a modern deconstruction of this historical story, partly inspired by William Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name (1623). Rodrigues focuses mainly on the many dichotomies in Shakespeare’s text: east and west, reason and passion, male and female, stern Rome and exotic Alexandria, love and war, comedy and tragedy. Another source is Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, from the second century AD – a series of historical biographies Shakespeare took as the basis for his play. Rodrigues also incorporated elements of the Hollywood production Cleopatra (1963) directed by Joseph Mankiewicz.

Despite these extensive citations, Rodrigues’ Antony and Cleopatra is an original work, constructed from the memories of the various different interpretations of the two historical figures. Even though, it is a romance based on real events, through the centuries the details of this love story have evolved, faded, amplified and changed. The core is all that remains. Rodrigues reduces the story to a confrontation between two dancer-actors: the duo of choreographers (and real-life couple) Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz. As themselves, they embody, in the here-and-now, the Antony and Cleopatra of there-and-then. In the process, Rodrigues consciously creates a distance between the actors and characters. At the same time, a striking mirror effect is at play: Antony describes the world through Cleopatra’s eyes, and vice versa. This reversal is a central theme of the performance. As the play proceeds, Dias and Roriz come closer to their characters. Their choreography, which includes playful, mathematical and poetic elements, is placed within a dynamic set, designed by Ângela Rocha, with lighting by Nuno Meira, creating an universe of instability and perpetual motion.

Antony and Cleopatra premiered in 2014 and has been staged in various European theatres and at the Festival d’Avignon. The production marks Rodrigues’ debut at the Holland Festival.

In this production the audience is invited to experience the world ‘vice versa’, through the souls of Cleopatra and Antony. As Rodrigues puts it himself: ‘This is going to sound a little pompous, but I believe that in love like in politics one has to have the will, humility, and courage to destroy a part of oneself, to leave some ideas and dreams behind so as to have the space and the possibility to see the world through the eyes of the other.’

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text Tiago Rodrigues with quotes from William Shakespeare direction Tiago Rodrigues cast Sofia Dias, Vitor Roriz set Ângela Rocha costumes Ângela Rocha, Magda Bizarro light design Nuno Meira music Alex North artistic collaboration Maria João Serrão, Thomas Walgrave set design Decor Galamba English translation Joana Frazão executive producer Rita Forjaz executive production on the original creation Magda Bizarro, Rita Mendes production Teatro Nacional D. Maria II based on work by MundoPerfeito coproduction Centro Cultural de Belém, Centro Cultural Vila Flôr, Temps d’Images artistic residence Teatro do Campo Alegre, Teatro Nacional de São João, alkantara thanks to Ana Mónica, Ângelo Rocha, Carlos Mendonça, Luísa Taveira, Manuela Santos, Rui Carvalho Homem, Salvador Santos, Toninho Neto, Bomba Suicida support Museu de Marinha

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This performance is made possible by

Otemba - Daring Women

ROHTKO