National Theatre Live in HD: "Antony and Cleopatra"
Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo dazzle in Shakespeare’s tragedy of politics, passion and power.
Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo dazzle as Shakespeare’s famous fated couple in his riveting tragedy of politics, passion and power.
Caesar and his assassins are dead. General Mark Antony (Fiennes) now rules alongside his fellow defenders of Rome. But at the fringes of a war-torn empire the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (Okonedo) and Antony have fallen fiercely in love. In a tragic fight between devotion and duty, obsession becomes a catalyst for war. Runtime approx. 3h40m
“Fiennes goes on to give us every aspect of Antony: the born soldier, the dreaming sensualist, the wry piss-taker in the scene on Pompey’s galley. But he is at his best in charting Antony’s tragic decline. Okonedo matches him blow for blow by bringing out Cleopatra’s mix of ardour and irony. She seems to love Antony most when he is not actually there as if enraptured by an imagined ideal. Like all good Cleopatras, she is also quick-witted … fiery and mercurial.”
