We round up the reviews for Blanche McIntyre’s bilingual production.
Broadway World: *** “John Hollingworth and Nadia Nadarajah are truly excellent in their roles. Hollingworth manages to portray Antony as a man who has had great military success in the past (his confidence and a glint in his eye suggest he can relive those glory days), but also a shadow of his former self when luck doesn’t quite go his way. Nadarajah is a powerful presence as the Egyptian queen – it’s notable that a character only manages to gag Cleopatra once (by physically restraining her), but even then she has the strength to break free with her voice.”
WhatsOnStage: **** “Starting with the successes, the greatest is that the cast’s signing powerfully brings to life Shakespeare’s imagery. We see his poetry in every thrust of an arm or curl of a hand. His wit, too; BSL draws out the play’s humour beautifully, as signing melds into physical comedy. Nadeem Islam is the standout comedian as the wretched messenger who must tell Cleopatra about Antony’s marriage to Octavia, and signs increasingly unflattering and vivid (not to mention scatological) descriptions of the queen’s romantic rival.”
The Guardian: *** “Nadia Nadarajah is a regal Cleopatra. Obsessive and quick to temper, she is rash and romantic, sweeping across the stage to profess her love for the slimy Mark Antony (John Hollingworth), despite deserving far better than his tactical cheating and selfish attempt at murder. The chemistry between them takes effort to see; they are much stronger in their characters alone than they are together. Their intimacy is most apparent when Antony shakes loose his rigid arrogance and signs to Cleopatra what he would yell at anyone else.”
Evening Standard: *** “To have brought something so bold and complex to the stage at all is a technical triumph for director Blanche McIntyre. Her production captures granular relationships but misses the big picture. John Hollingworth’s Antony catches Cleopatra’s attention with a stamp of his foot and the scenes where he signs to her have the intimacy of a lover communicating in his second language. On the line “dost thou hear lady?” he points to his eyes.”
London Theatre.co.uk: *** “Though the production is something of an endurance test, it’s worth remembering that hearing audiences who don’t know BSL are merely required to spend two-and-a-half hours between the hearing and Deaf worlds – such a sense of dislocation is something that the Deaf community is essentially required to navigate on a full-time basis. It’s a powerful contemporary message for this classic play.”
Time out: *** “Nadarajah is excellent: she plays Cleopatra with her whole body, and her heady physicality and total sense of living in the moment sets the whole stage alight. Of the Romans, Gabin Kongolo is particularly good as an attitude-heavy Pompey, and Daniel Millar is a very likeable Enobarbus. McIntye’s production does do that thing where the leads’ lengthy deaths drag into something approaching comedy territory (this is absolutely Shakespeare’s fault, or at least in part) but the final image of Nadarajah’s Cleopatra sitting at her throne in poised, deathly repose is a potent one and a fitting end to a performance that is perhaps a bigger deal than the production around it.”
All That Dazzles: *** “Antony and Cleopatra was an interesting choice for staging a bilingual performance, and it would be interesting to see Blanche McIntyre use this direction to transform another of Shakespeare’s works. It may not be the simplest watch, but it is an experience I would recommend.”
The Telegraph: ** “The casting of both deaf and hearing actors and use of BSL isn’t the problem in this production – it’s the lack of other ideas.”
West End Best Friend: **** “This bilingual production of Antony & Cleopatra is an interesting take on a complex and sometimes puzzling play; the interplay of spoken language and BSL adds some new dimensions and illuminates where there might otherwise be a tendency to obscurity.”
iNews.co.uk: ** “An accessible Shakespeare production was well-intentioned but disappointing.”
The Reviews Hub: *** 1/2 “Director Blanche McIntyre skilfully brings the audience into a world where we experience the full force of a tragedy and ultimately feel what it is like to fight with body and soul, for what and who you love.”
Antony & Cleopatra continues to play at the Shakespeare’s Globe until the 15th September.