Anthony and Cleopatra: ‘Age Cannot Wither Her, Nor Custom Stale Her Infinite Variety’

Episode 221:

Last time I took you into the world of the court masque with the help of Kristen Macdermott who, I think you will agree, painted a very detailed picture of that very particular theatrical form and the way the Stuart court embraced it. As we heard, masques were often written by playwrights and performed by actors who also wrote for and performed in the public playhouse, so it’s no surprise that a few plays feature masques. We have already encountered short masques in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Timon of Athens’, with the best known example from ‘The Tempest’ still to come and Shakespeare’s next offering ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ would, you might think, have been another opportunity to include a masque featuring exotic characters to add to the glamorous setting. In fact, Shakespeare chose not to include a masque specifically, but we can see that he uses the attributes of the masque throughout the play.

Masque elements used in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

The dating of the play

The early print history of the play

The sources for the play

The different style of the play from it’s near neighbours

A brief synopsis of the play

How the main characters and the political story and love story are balanced in the play

The hyperbolic language used in the play

The character of Antony

Equals and opposites in the play and how Antony deals with them

The character of Octavius

The character of Cleopatra

The death of Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra as a Stuart period play

A short word on the history of criticism of the play

The later performance history of the play

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