Director/Adaptor: John Kaufmann
Assistant Director: Makaela Pollock
Production Manager: Brynn Hambly
Set Design: Jenny Anderson
Light Design: AJ Epstein
Costume Design: Mairi Chisolm
Marimba and Original Sound Design: Erin Jorgensen
Web Crowell: Props and Gizmos
Cast: Tim Barr, Chris Blancett, Khanh Doan, Cecelia Frye, Anna Henare, Heather Hughes, Josh Knisely, Shawn Law, Willie Levasseur, Jeanette Maus, Lantze Wagner, Terri Weagant
Preshow Sequence: With Antony and Cleopatra, I was interested in contrasting the cold, reasonable, masculine world of Rome with the warm, passionate, feminine world of Egypt. To emphasize this contrast, I wanted the worlds onstage simultaneously, with a threshold between the worlds. I always enjoyed when an actor would have to move through the threshold so we could see the physical and emotional transition in real time. The Preshow Sequence gives a nice introduction to these worlds. As the audience enters the theatre space, the actors play and improvise on stage without Shakespeare’s text. It was a warm up for the actors, and a chance for the audience to sense the worlds of the play. Above the action, Erin Jorgensen plays the marimba, gently vibrating the actors and audience members out of their mundane “pre-play” existence.
This short sequence also demonstrates the conflicting worlds of the play. Cleopatra lounges on her waterbed, playing with toy boats. This ripples into the “real” world when she convinces Antony to sail as well. I was interested in making the battles “real” and asked for a “battle machine” that the actors could genuinely struggle with. I wanted the winners to have a true physical advantage (4 tugging against 2, for example) rather than to see actors “faking” or throwing the fight. I wanted to keep the favored team honest and the handicapped team fighting for an upset. I think I went too far for this ideal. Web Crowell did make a beautiful “battle machine,” but when the actors really did put their heart and muscle into it, it sometimes broke (granted: spectacularly, wood-splittingly loudly - and expensively). In the end, we had to compromise a little, but the battle scenes still offered genuine struggle, and a ritual of conflict that “really happened.”