As signalled by its name alone, Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s production of Cleopatra & Antony offers a new look at William Shakespeare’s classic play Antony and Cleopatra, proposing to put Cleopatra at the centre of the narrative.
Sonya Suares’s direction shines through really clearly in this show. Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra spans 40 scenes, 34 named characters and rapidly traverses many locations across Egypt, Rome and parts of Greece. It’s easy to understand why the play is often overlooked for performance in favour of many of Shakespeare’s other works. Suares has fared well in face of such a challenge, presenting a well-paced, fast-moving show that takes it audiences through a complex emotional journey.
Where a standard production of Antony and Cleopatra may run for around 2 hours and 45 minutes, this production lasts only 100 minutes. Many cuts have been made to the text in order to achieve this, while the role of Cleopatra’s attendant Charmian has been boosted to the new role of narrator.
Suares’s direction also allows the show to move well between its modes of comedy and tragedy. In particular, the cast does well to naturally bring out the early moments of comedy in the show.
While the inversion of the show’s title does feel like more than just a gimmick, this is still not Cleopatra’s story more than it belongs to Antony. The cuts may have made Cleopatra and Antony textual equals, but Cleopatra is still not the centre. To be fair, the show is called Cleopatra & Antony and not solely Cleopatra. It would be challenging to showcase Cleopatra’s talents as a linguist and scholar, as mentioned by Charmian in the new opening, without further additions to Shakespeare’s text.
Cleopatra & Antony does remain a production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, as advertised, not a whole, new thing. The show prompts interesting questions of how best to shape stories when we make an active choice to retell them in some kind of novel way: is it best to do this within the frame they exist in, or is it better to take the act of retelling a step further towards a transformation into something new?
I applaud Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s ambition of spotlighting a woman within the world of Shakespeare. A large section of the theatre canon we adore, as beloved as it is, does not offer much for the women who bolster up the theatre companies and industries of today.
The question also remains whether Cleopatra would shine through as much without the performance of Akina Edmonds. Edmonds gives a magnificent performance as Cleopatra: charismatic, alluring, enigmatic. She holds attention in any scene she is in. The problem, as in many of Shakespeare’s plays, is that Antony is given so much more to work with in the first place.
For her professional Shakespeare debut amongst a heavily musical theatre-based career, Edmonds is a natural. I’d happily see her return in a future season as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing or Rosalind in As You Like It.
Louis Lucente’s Antony is a more grounding force compared to Edmonds’s Cleopatra and Damon Baudin excels in presenting a softer, sociopathic Octavius Caesar. Tsungirai Wachenuka guides the audience through the show well as Charmian. From the greater ensemble, Jennifer Vuletic as Agrippa and Mark Yeates as Lepidus and Proculeius both deliver strong performances.
Thomas Royce-Hampton’s movement and fight direction is excellent. The non-naturalistic fight choreography and movement in the Battle of Actium is a real highlight of the show and serves as a nice contrast to many of the faster-paced dialogue-heavy scenes. Many of the scenic elements combine well in this sequence, including Eloise Kent’s set design featuring fabric sails and a three-tiered step platform behind the stage.
Rating: Recommend
Play: Cleopatra & Antony
Writer: William Shakespeare
Theatre: Melbourne Shakespeare Company
Director: Sonya Suares
Starring: Akina Edmonds (Cleopatra), Louis Lucente (Antony), Tsungirai Wachenuka (Charmian), Damon Baudin (Octavius), Amir Antoine (Philo/Caesarion/Eros), Julia Hanna (Iras/Octavia), Mikey Sakinofsky (Alexas/Menas), Laura Iris Hill (Enobarbus), Damian Okulic (Ventidius/Soldier), Deep Sroa (Pompey/Thryreus), Angelo Torres (Soothsayer/Menecrates), Mark Yeates (Lepidus/Proculeius) and Jennifer Vuletic (Agrippa)
Dates and venue: fortyfivedownstairs until 13 September 2026