Divine commentary
All For Love
By John Dryden
Directed by Cailin Heffernan
Boomerang Theatre Company
Center Stage
Equity showcase (closed)
Review by Charles Battersby
John Dryden
wrote All for Love in 1677, not so long after Shakespeare’s Antony
And Cleopatra, but still, a bunch of kings had come and gone in those 70
years, and England’s style of drama had changed by the time Dryden wrote his
take on Rome’s doomed lovers.
All For
Love shows
audiences a different perspective of Marc Antony (Peter Picard), and focuses on the final days of his romance with
Cleopatra (Sheryl MacCallum). The
action in Dryden’s story is set after the battle of Actium. For those who don't
know their Roman history, Marc Antony and Octavian (Julius Caesar's
grand-nephew and official heir) were struggling for control of the empire, and
the battle of Actium was the point at which Antony's defeat became inevitable;
afterwards, he and Cleopatra fled back to Egypt.
Audiences
see Marc Antony only after his ignoble defeat, and he comes across as something
of a doofus in Dryden's hands. He’s a moping, lovelorn, broken commander, who
resists his friends’ attempts to rekindle his warrior spirit. Picard’s performance enhanced these aspects of the text, depicting a
weak man, conscious of his faults, but unable to act against them. It's an
interpretation of Marc Antony not often seen, but no less proper than the
classic Shakespearean image of him.
There were
a lot of nifty bits of subtle design work, and some clever directorial symbols
used in this production. A great example of these was a downstage-right
pedestal on which rested a statue of one of the gods from the Egyptian
pantheon. On the other side of the stage was another pedestal that had a statue
of one of the Roman gods. For each act, the gods were changed to suit the
events of the story, so for the death scene it was Anubis and Pluto, the gods
of death. It was a feature so clever that only a handful of mythology nerds would
understand it, but it showed director Heffernan's
attention to detail, and understanding of Roman and Egyptian culture.
Cheryl McCarron’s costumes included some authentic
period armor and arms. The Romans got to wear more elaborate outfits than the
Egyptians, whose costumes seemed a bit thrown together at times (I could swear
one Egyptian had a pinstriped sash), but the look of both costumes and set (Scott Orlesky) fit the period, and
added a good deal of realism to the production.
Since All
For Love starts after the battle of Actium, this means that Dryden devotes
his entire five-act play to what was only the last two acts of Shakespeare’s Antony
and Cleopatra. It did seem to drag on a tad, lasting for two-and-a-half
hours. The Boomerang Theatre Company had edited it down a bit, but the doomed
lovers still took their time getting to their inevitable deaths. On the other
hand, this is a rarely produced work, so it’s perfectly forgivable that the
Boomerangs kept in as much of it as possible, though that still might be bit
much for folk who aren’t classical theatre buffs.
(Also
featuring: Dylan Carusona, Gregory Mikell, Ingrid Griffith, Mark
Light-Orr, Bram Heidinger, Ursula Cataan, Heather Braverman,
Alexander Nicole Crisco, Taylor
Nicole Adams, Steven M. Bari, Kirk Gostkowski, Andrew Harriss, Stephanie
Rosenberg, and Melissa Haley Smith.)
Writing: 2
Directing: 1
Acting: 1
Set: 1
Costumes: 2
Lighting/Sound: 1
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Copyright 2005 Charles Battersby