- Hamlet, and: The Merry Wives of Windsor, and: Antony and Cleopatra
The Utah Shakespearean Festival's 2006 season showcased a tour de force production of Hamlet, starring Brian Vaughn and directed by Jim Sullivan; a Merry Wives of Windsor with delightful extra-textual moments; and an Antony and Cleopatra that was tragic for many reasons, most of them not related to the script itself. For audiences, this range of shows [End Page 126] offered powerful moments of pathos as well as enervated moments of tedium: a hit-or-miss season, but the hits more than made up for the misses.
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Let me begin with the weakest of the three productions, Antony and Cleopatra. The show lumbered from scene to scene without building much of anything that could be mistaken for dramatic or tragic tension; it was largely uninteresting, unimaginative, and unoriginal. Typical of the production, Egypt was distinguished from Rome merely by a rolling platform thrust onto the stage and then withdrawn again just as plainly. Antony's Romans were costumed in earth-toned loungewear (one audience member thought "pajamas") while Octavius's Romans wore silver breastplates and brightly-colored amicti and tunica—colorful, certainly, but pedestrian costuming for Romans and an odd "traditional" counterpoint to the casual clothing of Antony's Romans.
While originality is not necessary for enjoyable Shakespearean theatre, one does want a lead actor to inhabit his role with passion and emotion. Bill Christ, despite an impressive resume, failed to articulate his Antony as anyone worth caring about, either as a leader or a lover. Frequently difficult to hear and understand, he was still more disappointing in his [End Page 127] flat, soporific characterization of the co-ruler of the Roman Empire. Had the surrounding cast been strong, such a deficiency might have been overcome; however, while Jacqueline Antaramian (Cleopatra), Michael Brusasco (Octavius), Leslie Brott (Charmian), Afton Quast (Iras), and others were acceptable, none were given the kind of direction that would have allowed them to do more than walk through their roles.
Certainly, the directing by Nagle Jackson lies at the heart of this uninspired production. Scenes between Antony and Cleopatra which should have crackled with energy—either...