Antony and Cleopatra (Pelican Shakespeare) FROM THE PUBLISHER
Antony and Cleopatra has the strangest stage history of any of Shakespeare's major tragedies. Richard Madelaine explains how the play's challenging complexity has at different times inhibited or promoted its success on the stage, and accounts for the remarkable resurgence of performances in the last twenty-five years. The introduction provides the only detailed, extensive and up-to-date history of the play on stage and screen, in and beyond Britain. Making plentiful use of direct quotation from contemporary sources, Madelaine examines the ways in which cultural factors have shaped the performance of the play, and how actors have tackled the main parts, in particular the exotic eroticism of Cleopatra. In the process he reveals not only the rich plurality of possible readings of the play, but also changing attitudes to Shakespeare.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
The three individual plays launch the third edition of the venerable "Arden Shakespeare" series, which will see the entire canon reproduced in superior scholarly editions by the year 2000. The First Folio is a facsimile edition of the original 1623 publication of the bard's works.
AudioFile - Rachel Astarte Piccione
This production performed by the Shakespeare Recording Society (with special guests) is excellent in its recording quality. Pamela Brownﾽs performance as Cleopatra herself certainly stands out. What she does with the words of the anguished queen is like what Edith Piaf did with a common love song. With her deep breaths and moaning, it would have been easy for Brown to fall over that delicate edge of emoting into a pit of melodrama, but she never does. Listeners are given an energetic and passionate woman. And with Anthony Quayleﾽs dashing Antony and Paul Danemanﾽs regal Caesar, the triumvirate is wildly successful. R.A.P. ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine
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