Ben Brantly, NY Times

March 5, 2014

You know that Caribbean vacation you’ve been dreaming about  in these last draggy days of winter? Well, you may want to rethink such fantasies after you see the Tarell Alvin McCraney’s squishy, misbegotten “Anthony and Cleopatra,” which resets Shakespeare’s tragedy on the island of Hispaniola during the reign of the French.

True, as designed by Tom Piper, this production-which opened at the Public Theater on Wednesday night- looks travel brochure seductive at first, with its beckoning seascape of gleaming water and airy shades of blue. But be warned. Swimming equals death here: When characters get wet, in the rippling pool at the rear of the stage, you know they’re goners.

The blessing, and the bummer, is that you won’t really care what happens to them one way or another. A collaboration among the Public, the Royal Shakespeare Company of Britain, and GableStage of Miami, everything about this “Anthony and Cleopatra” is dampened by its soggy high reconception. That includes any spark of chemistry between its titled lovers, embodied by a mismatched Jonothan Cake and Joaquina Kalukango. Mr. McCraney, the terrifically talented young American author of “The Brother/Sister Plays” trilogy and an associate artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company, has both directed and “edited” (as the program had it) the story of an autumnal romance that shaped the fate of nations. This means that the original text has been considerably rearranged and relocated in time as well as place.      …continued

Antony and Cleopatra

By William Shakespeare; edited and directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney; designed by Tom Piper; lighting by Stephen Strawbridge; audio system design by Walter Trarbach; music by Michael Thurber; music director, Akintayo Akinbode; choreography by Gelan Lambert; dramaturges, James Shapiro and Catherine Sheehy; production stage manager, Evangeline Rose Whitlock; associate artistic director, Mandy Hackett; associate producer, Maria Goyanes; general manager, Steven Showalter; production executive, Ruth E. Sternberg. Presented by the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artistic director; Patrick Willingham, executive director; GableStage and the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with the Ohio State University. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village, 212-967-7555, publictheater.org. Through March 23. Running time: 2 hours and 40 minutes

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