Years before introducing us to Henry Higgins and Eliza Dolittle, George Bernard Shaw crafted another play in which a male mentor was charmed, frustrated and outmaneuvered by a female protégée who ultimately taught him a few lessons about life beneath his pedestal. In Caesar and Cleopatra, mind you, the pupil is a queen, and her instructor, also drawn from history, an esteemed conqueror who riveted Shaw, inspiring a character considerably nobler than Pygmalion’s phonetics professor.
What makes Gingold Theatrical Group artistic director David Staller‘s new adaptation of Caesar and Cleopatra so delightful, though, is how deftly he and his splendid cast bring these historical figures and others down to earth, without downplaying the moral questions that inform the work—about authority, vengeance, temperance and love. Cutting minor characters and revising some of the text to accommodate buoyant, contemporary touches, the director addresses these forever topical concerns while sustaining a playful, mischievous spirit that would have likely pleased the author (who himself had some regrets about the play, Staller’s notes tell us, and the grandiose film adaptation that followed it decades later).
Staller could hardly have a more adroit leading man than Robert Cuccioli, an actor and singer who is known for his work in bloated mega-musicals such as Jekyll & Hyde and Les Misérables, but has brought his stirring baritone, sharp wit and enduring sexual charisma to many more sophisticated musicals and plays. As Caesar, Cuccioli is called on to suppress that last quality a bit, at least initially; his posture is slightly stooped as he enters, his appearance weary—that of a man of a certain age, who has seen and won more than his share of battles, and isn’t smacking his lips waiting for the next adventure.
He finds it nonetheless, in Cleopatra, who in Teresa Avia Lim’s spry performance bursts out of the gate full of the righteous if somewhat unfocused vigor of youth, then evolves beguilingly. Caesar calls her a child at first, while Cleopatra refers to him, before realizing who he is, as a “funny old gentleman.” Their teasing tone continues even as Cleopatra develops as a thinker and schemer, and Cuccioli, summoning his characteristic virility, makes it clear that Caesar’s faculties are still operating in full force—as a leader, a warrior and a man who can read both admirers and rivals, and recognize in the fair young queen elements of both.
While it’s documented that Caesar and Cleopatra were lovers, the play wisely focuses on other elements of their relationship while leaving plenty of room for that kind of tension, which Staller and his attractive stars don’t shy away from. Costume designer Tracy Christensen has provided Lim with a succession of white outfits that grow more revealing as Cleopatra comes into her own as a ruler and a woman, starting with bulky sweats and sneakers and progressing through an array of wispy, bejeweled numbers to a skin-tight cocktail dress with heels.
But the sparkle in Cuccioli’s eye as Caesar regards her owes to something other than lust. There is a tenderness in this Caesar’s interaction with Lim’s Cleopatra—not paternal, quite, but coming from a place of more experience, and more disappointment—and a sense that their characters enjoy one another as they establish growing mutual respect, if not trust. This process seems especially poignant for Caesar; watching the Egyptian queen blossom, Cuccioli makes us realize, the Roman ruler feels his own mortality all the more keenly.
Lim’s Cleopatra isn’t the only formidable female in this staging. Drawing on an early draft of Shaw’s screenplay, and incorporating stage directions from the play, Shaw has expanded the part of Ftatateeta, Cleopatra’s chief nurse, to make her a narrator, who greets the audience from the underworld and peppers our journey with witty asides. (Her introduction replaces the play’s original prologue, for which Shaw himself wrote an alternative.) The lustrous Brenda Braxton is mighty and joyful in the role, even as Ftatateeta is—spoiler alert—being murdered. “You know, even in that condition, I looked wonderful,” Braxton quips, an ominous string of red ribbon—one of scenic designer Brian Panther’s artful, low-tech flourishes—unraveling from her throat.
In Staller’s stripped-down iteration, the character of Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s kid brother, husband and would-be usurper, is represented, hilariously, by a mop-haired puppet, manipulated by Rajesh Bose, excellent as Pothinus, the boy king’s pompous, perfidious guardian. Jeff Applegate and Jonathan Hadley also lend hearty support as, respectively, Caesar’s loyal aide, Rufio, and his English secretary, Brittanus, and Dan Domingues is exuberantly entertaining as Cleopatra’s great admirer Apollodorus, making his slavish (if cunning) devotion great fun to behold—as is the production, from start to finish.
Caesar and Cleopatra opened September 24, 2019, at Theatre Row and runs through October 12. Tickets and information: gingoldgroup.org
