„Think you there is or may be such a man as this I dreamt of?”

Now my theatre trip to London is over – and I still cannot believe it! Not just that I actually made it there and back again in the inexplicable time gap between heavy snowfalls choking air travel from Munich, security on strike, drones at Heathrow, and the S-Bahn to the airport temporarily being out of service on the very morning of my flight. (At least the old tube proved reliable as ever; though it LOOKS like scrap it always works. And Heathrow – quite unlike FJS in Munich – is great! You can even hang out there overnight in front of the check-in without being bothered … To be fair: there wasn’t any snow!) It was rather that - same as with Christopher Eccleston in Stratford - I just couldn’t take it in that I saw Ralph Fiennes “in the flesh” there and then, on that stage. In a way, I know I never will, and maybe it doesn’t matter. My first thought about it was anyway that it might be better like this. IF I could have chosen, I wouldn’t have wanted to see him LIKE THIS! So, even though I made it there and back again smoothly in the end, it was rather a bumpy ride.

But this wasn’t actually such a bad thing.

Since I decided to take my reading seriously I have often noticed that I learn more important things when it doesn’t turn out as it is supposed to. And this time, I think, I got an even longer and closer look at why this is so. In fact, I had been very conscious from the beginning that there would be obstructions. I already knew that my nervous system would be on red alert all the way through this until I would be on my flight back to Munich. So, to relax and enjoy would be out of the question. And – even worse! – I had just watched the RSC’s most recent production of the play with Antony Byrne and Josette Simon on DVD which actually is the best Shakespeare I have ever seen, the most perfect, satisfying, and “complete” production of one of his plays – together with the Almeida’s “Richard III” with Ralph Fiennes! So, there was another thing I already knew: that I HAD expectations which were probably way too high to be met. Nonetheless, I wasn’t prepared for THIS!

It is strange how “we” know within moments if what we see on the stage is going to work or not. I have the strangest recollection of Richard Armitage entering the stage as John Proctor – when I knew even BEFORE he actually said anything that I was going to see something absolutely special. In this case it took me about three sentences of Ralph Fiennes to know that this wasn’t going to work. I experienced a brief stab of panic at the realization that I might have to downgrade Ralph Fiennes, but I became aware almost immediately that I NEVER EVER would. And I realize now that this wasn’t because I don’t WANT to. I even downgraded Richard Armitage a bit which was the last thing I wanted to do, but this was just because I knew he had raised UNREASONABLY high expectations. (Even though IMDB – unbidden! - provided me with the information that he plays three really difficult and completely different musical instruments on top of everything else he does incredibly well he is STILL human.) As to Ralph Fiennes I COULDN’T downgrade him because nothing he may or may not do will ever damage what I came to love him for: the way he is human AS AN ACTOR. Implicitly understanding this, I think, I was able to follow him – and the production – on their three and a half hour journey to death, destruction, and the revolution of all things …

So I might just be done with Ralph Fiennes and proceed to the rest, but I made this journey because of him, and there were a few really interesting things I learned about WHY he is probably so special as an actor. First of all, though I am usually crap at casting, this time I would have been right as he was about the last person I would have casted for Antony. As, in fact, I had anticipated in the beginning, he was JUST WRONG. The reason that I was right this time is that, not often but sometimes, physicalness is really important for a character to turn out right. Ralph Fiennes lacks just about two inches of everything that Antony needs: height, muscle, voice, masculine good looks. Antony is supposed to be the kind of man that every soldier will follow without a moment of hesitation when he is roaring across the field. The kind of man who will catch the eye of every woman, whom, in fact, everybody likes because of his (superficial) openness and joviality. (He probably always has been crap as a politician – even before he got into bed with Cleopatra - but gets things fixed temporarily just because of his good personality!) In fact, a very simple and straightforward kind of perfection which Ralph Fiennes (as an actor!) utterly lacks. Theoretically, it wouldn’t have been impossible for a great actor to “put on” even exactly two inches of EVERYTHING, or compensate for some of it in other ways. Practically, it would have been damned difficult and probably very little fun. But Antony Byrne is not that “perfect” either. If I am looking on him with an ungracious eye he physically is rather insufficient as well, except he is broader in the chest, and his voice isn’t actually much better, though louder. But I didn’t NOTICE any of this because he was PLAYING it so well!

Here I am coming to the worst thing I am ever going to say about Ralph Fiennes. At one time during the performance I became fascinated because I realized that I just saw the pure SUBSTANCE of him as an actor. And this was kind of unpleasant and totally fascinating at the same time. Fascinating because I have never actually seen this, and you only ever get a chance to see it on the stage because, on camera, they would do something to “fix” it. Unpleasant because I realized that Claudia had been right when she said that Ralph Fiennes usually doesn’t work great ON THE STAGE. When I said “substance” it is just my default term for all the hard work and basic acting skills that we would still see if we could take away the METHOD ACTING. And this substance was surprisingly thin.

So, now I had a break and a drink to celebrate my newest adventure with “Shakespeare” – as, from now on, it will only get better. When I wrote “thin” I still didn’t mean kind of non-existent as it is with most German actors. He is a BRITISH actor, and consequently must have picked up a few skills. In fact, he showed in this production that he can sing well, in a naturally beautiful voice, and he is physically very fit, as they all are. But he is a bit older than Christopher Eccleston, and the only time I laughed during this performance was when he proved that he can work out and speak Shakespeare text at the same time quite a bit longer than his younger colleague. (Though, I suppose, if it had been for the Guinness World Records Christopher Eccleston would have risen to the challenge!) And it wasn’t just funny but also revealing because it is actually about the same issue: if anything, Antony is even more in need of proving his masculinity at that point …

Of course he can do a few things as an actor, probably a lot of things IF he feels that they make sense. What I actually witnessed was that he is crap at “default acting”. This is also a new term that materialized to indicate something I have often noticed but never on this scale. I never saw - respectively: heard - so many actors who obviously didn’t know what they should be doing with their text, so much text that never “grew” beyond the stage of being learned. But there OBVIOUSLY is some kind of default acting for Shakespeare – a certain manner of speaking the text vigorously and making the appropriate movements so that you are getting away with it. I think this kind of routine is even really important to get over the passages that don’t make sense to the “juicy bits”. And when there are enough juicy bits the audience won’t notice. Or: the audience won’t notice, full stop. “Nobody” did, in this case. The audience obviously enjoyed the production. I suppose even Ralph Fiennes got away with it because the singing, the kissing, and the dying were okay. There was also some genuine acting, mainly by Tim McMullan as Enobarbus, Tunji Kasim as Caesar, Fisayo Akinade as a genuinely compassionate Eros, and last, because best comes last: Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra. I was looking forward to seeing her as well and also was a bit disappointed in the beginning, but of this later! Apart from them, the production was rather insignificant in this respect.

Just to finish with Ralph Fiennes: It is obvious that he wasn’t able to strike a relationship with this character, and didn’t find a “default mode” to disguise this failure. This is something that might happen to any actor, and I even liked it that his acting obviously is so “decent” that it shows when he doesn’t believe in it. I liked it especially as proof for my theory that (contemporary) method acting and “Shakespeare” are not a match made in heaven. It can go extremely well, as in “Richard III” where, I believe, he found the link with the character “in himself”, as a method actor, and THEN experienced how great he can be at “Shakespeare acting”. Of course he got “listed” for Shakespeare after this, and was probably thrilled about doing it again. It just didn’t work “the other way round”.

The really intriguing thing about this was that he had a few convincing moments, and these were the moments when, I think, he used “just being himself” as default. It might even have been a good idea he had about this character because it happens when he is out of Egypt and back in Rome – with the other Romans who are still treating him like the Antony he has been. Who basically like him as they have always done, and where he isn’t out of his depth as he actually is with Cleopatra. Because – great as all this might be – it is made abundantly clear that she is the one calling the shots. This observation gave me the idea that – of course! – Ralph Fiennes in real life isn’t ANYTHING like Richard III but would probably make a good contemporary Antony. He might just be somebody with an attractive and convincing personality whom other people see as “genuine” and trustworthy, and would listen to and naturally accept as a leader. But Antony is also somebody who has a dark side – and a strong tendency towards “disintegrating” which, I think, he isn’t sufficiently aware of because he still believes that he is this person which the approval of other people makes him SEE - EVEN THOUGH he constantly works at destroying this image.

In fact, without having to fall back on Freud, I am convinced that this isn’t so very special. That probably everybody has this dark side because it is part of our humanity – not just to be who our environment wills us to be, but to be OUR OWN PERSON. And this is one of the most common and least dignified male predicaments because men usually are under a lot of pressure to conform. One thing that was really interesting in the program was a description of the historical Antony as somebody who had a sense of humour. For us, this is almost a requirement to “fit in”, but, being a ROMAN, it obviously made him stand out. It indicates that he might actually have had an issue with conformity, and that he found genuine release being with Cleopatra. Not that I think that A MAN would usually make this connection. It is rather a BLIND SPOT, fraught with shame and frustration because there isn’t really a way out. This makes Antony appear dishonest and ridiculous because WE can see the blind spot whereas HE has to ignore it! I think that Antony Byrne just trusted Shakespeare on this and played it, and it worked. But I didn’t become aware of the TRUTH and depth of what Shakespeare has written until I saw Ralph Fiennes – who usually is so brilliant with anything painful! – unable to play it. We usually try to avoid pain, but there are probably a lot more people than “we” think who like it, just because they have experienced that it releases a lot more adrenaline than other, more pleasant, activities. And experiencing pain might be a good “treatment” for the predicament in question: an efficient method of dealing with our dark sides without getting damaged for real. But, for acting it, there has to be a FUN bit. And there might even be a lot of “fun” involved in digging for pain in unlikely, dark places very far from home, but limited fun in picking at blind spots. The kind of shameful and undignified position Antony gets himself into is NO FUN AT ALL – quite like Othello’s death, or, in fact, many of Shakespeare’s “nothing moments” which are no fun at all if you have to look at them “from the inside”, as great method actors have to do. Otherwise, where would be the fun in that?

Sophie Okonedo definitely had fun with Cleopatra – too much fun, as I thought at first. As I had just seen Josette Simon’s really complex and rather serious Cleopatra I felt that she played it too superficially. But about halfway through the production I realized that she was the only actor on the stage who actually had a plan about her character that fitted with the rest of the production. It even took some time until I consciously realized that they had transported the play into the present, probably because, for a change, I felt this to be such a bad idea. In this case, I found that it really helps to be aware of who these people WERE to understand what they are about. The audience in general obviously didn’t care about the finer points, they just wanted to see a great play. And this is what “Shakespeare” still is, always was and will be. And it probably works better if people don’t get distracted by history, and politics, and all that. So, they were probably right and I was wrong. I already had the sophisticated version delivered by the RSC – so, why even go there?

Sophie Okonedo was the one to deliver the answer to this question, in the end. Under the circumstances it was just consistent that she played Cleopatra rather like an ageing celebrity than like a queen. I have seen her playing queens beautifully – very dignified and kind of ironic AT THE SAME TIME - and was looking forward to it, hence the initial disappointment. And I still think that it is a pity to drop the historical dimension of the character so completely. But what she actually played she played well, and I cautiously raised my expectations towards the end – and got what I was bargaining for!

„Think you there is or may be such a man as this I dreamt of?”

I was looking forward to this part as it is one of my absolute favourite bits of “Shakespeare”, and – like the other favourite bits: “I talk of dreams which are the children of an idle brain …” from “Romeo and Juliet”, and “There is no creature loves me …” from “Richard III” – this is probably because I don’t completely understand what it means. Of course I constantly ANTICIPATE what it means, but I can never make the words “hold still” and pin down their meaning. Looking forward to it for some time and consciously experiencing what happens – if this happens! – I fully understood for the first time why this is so. These are the bits that I know are still waiting for me to “live” them, and me waiting for them to connect with MY content. It can happen suddenly and unexpectedly – like being scared - as it happened with “Not mad!” And it can happen because I am expecting it, like an orgasm. But, like an orgasm, you never know if it will come. (Or if I will come, for that matter!) In this case it was deeply satisfying because I waited for it, AND IT CAME!

I had waited for it twice already, seeing the Globe’s and the RSC’s productions on DVD, but neither Eve Best nor Josette Simon appeared to have a clue about it. Respectively, if they had, didn’t know what to do with it. And of course I totally liked it that I need the actor who has both - the humanity and the skill to “nail” it - to make it come. That this moment of total amalgamation of my (anticipated) content with the actor’s performed content is NECESSARY. Of course I don’t have a clue if Sophie Okonedo actually had this great understanding of what it means, or if she is just so good at playing it as if she meant it, and it doesn’t even matter. It just totally felt as if she wanted to meet me “there”, holding out her hand, saying: Trust me on this – YOU ARE RIGHT!

And I suddenly KNEW that I was right. That this is exactly what I EXPERIENCE mature FEMALE love is all about, and, at that moment, I genuinely couldn’t believe it that a man might have written this. I still don’t – where did something like this come from??? Idle question? – my personal experience about writing fiction is that if you feel that you have written something extraordinary or genuinely interesting it is BECAUSE you don’t know where it came from. Though, in this case, it was probably Shakespeare reading the history and getting intrigued at how special and unique this relationship must have been. There was this interesting bit in the program that they even CREATED a word for it: AMIMETOBION – an “INIMITABLE manner of living”. And even though, in fact, it was Shakespeare himself who took the political substance out of Cleopatra and painted her - in the manner of Antonius Caesar - as a weak ruler and a perversion that “looks on feeders” and plays men off against each other (“We” are just adding to the character the knowledge about who she really was!) he also made her into the TRUE HERO of the story.

The extraordinary love story is – as they always are! – the outcome of a “productive error”. “Think you there is OR MAY BE such a man … (!!!) NO, MADAM!" – Right!!! Of course not, there COULDN’T have been. Of course anybody in their right mind would think that Cleopatra has gone mad with grief. There is no margin of error because Shakespeare’s plays are never about what people imagine themselves or others to be, or what they SHOULD be. They are always about what people ARE REALLY LIKE. (In fact, I am having a bad time – BESIDES having a great one – comparing “Antony and Cleopatra” with a bit of reality happening in my immediate environment. Trusting Shakespeare, I know that this kind of thing ALWAYS ends badly …) And, of course, Shakespeare knew what MEN are like – in this respect they haven’t changed ONE BIT! As Antony is just what he is supposed to be – Cleopatra’s “man of men” – it isn’t even his fault that he is “insufficient”. EVERY MAN would be aware - somewhere in the dark recesses of his subconscious - that he is just following his lust, that it is “just sex”, and that sex isn’t SUPPOSED to be so important. That it would have been better for him if he had engendered a “lawful race” with his stuck-up Roman wife … And it is THIS that will destroy the amimetobion in the end. For some reason, only women can have an amimetobion – in my experience – a fictional world THAT IS REAL. I am really grateful for the WORD - the “male version” would be a pervert! But there is, of course, a difference!!! For some reason, women are usually better with metaphor. (To be really nasty: it might be because they so often have to make do without the “real thing”?)

And Shakespeare – who (probably) was male but who was also a poet – was obviously thrilled with the amimetobion. Ultimately, he appears to have very limited empathy for Antony but rather a lot for Cleopatra. Antony isn’t that important, in the end, apart from being a necessary INGREDIENT of the amimetobion. It doesn’t work without “an Antony” as its libidinous centre. LITERALLY – because the amimetobion only ever “happens” when its content actually is THE BEST I can imagine. Or rather: BETTER than I could have imagined! Obviously, I have “amimetobion experience”, but I still needed another human being to “agree” with me to understand:

“To IMAGINE an Antony were nature’s piece gainst fancy …”

A contradiction can be the greatest form of metaphor - the moment it gets suspended. ONLY THEN something unreal like the amimetobion becomes real. (And it only works because the contradiction gets suspended WHILE it is there. Great vortex feature!) It is impossible as a PERMANENT state of reality because of the insufficiency of its content. As I wrote: ALL MEN are human. All women as well, for that matter, but Cleopatra actually IS unique in this respect that she appears to defy contradiction:

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety. Other women cloy

The appetite they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies …”

Of course Cleopatra WAS totally special – which I am not! Her and Antony’s amimetobion – which must have cost not only insane money but human lives as well! – was world-famous. If she lived today it would be daily on instagram and would engender an insane amount of followers – and bucks! Antony accuses her of idleness, but I think she only APPEARS idle because she doesn’t conform with Roman standards. Defeating reality and managing contradiction never comes cheap. What the amimetobion takes – apart from funds and lives - is a hell of AN EFFORT.

This was the second thing I realized after my own amimetobion apparently materialized out of thin air. The first thing was: THIS IS IT – I’ll never ever give this up again! Then came the panic: But what shall I DO? What can I do to keep it, to make it permanent? The next thing I noticed was probably that I had already been doing something to bring this about. It didn’t really materialize “out of thin air”. I obviously was doing something RIGHT already, and I might just try and GET BETTER AT IT. It wouldn’t have to become visible and brilliant – like Cleopatra’s amimetobion. This was never part of the plan. But it had to become something really DIFFERENT and PERFECT, something that I would absolutely ENJOY. In a way, it had to become the absolute best version of BEING ME.

And I think this is the reason why Shakespeare – unlike Antony – didn’t paint Cleopatra as a failure. Why her end doesn’t taste of disintegration and defeat. Having lost all external power she still reigns where she always was sovereign, where she created this “inimitable” version of herself. The most intriguing question for me about it has always been why it isn’t possible to do this “just on my own”, without the “Antony” bit. Looking back, it was something that I dealt with from the start, the reason why I got “drawn in” by the Sonnets. Beauty and perfection “in nature” empowers the fictional activity – not the other way round! Without the perfect rose there would never have been a perfect sonnet. And I think this is because we need something we ABSOLUTELY ENJOY to get started on IMAGINING it. (Strange that I never noticed how INCREDIBLY brilliant Shakespeare is with contradictions - even though I “worked” with it already! There must be more …)

So, a lot HAPPENED for me watching “Antony and Cleopatra” at the National Theatre – during one of the least inspired productions of Shakespeare I have seen! How much is probably best measured by the observation that, during these three and a half hours, Cleopatra changed from one of the very few Shakespeare characters that I would have liked to throttle with my bare hands to somebody I genuinely understand. And this is certainly what I would call a result!