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Caesar & Cleopatra

This production certainly sets a good scene.

Nomadic Players’ and Naughty Sailboat’s co-production of Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra commands our attention right away. Actor William Jordan, as the Egyptian sun god Ra, cuts an impressive figure upon entrance, intoning with great solemnity that the ancients were "no worse, no better, no wiser, no sillier" than we, thumping his staff for emphasis.

It’s a line seemingly intended to set a general philosophical framework — but the problem is, by play’s end, whatever Shaw’s intended point seems lost in the generality and vagueness. What, really, is the play about?

There are themes introduced, to be sure. A contrast is drawn between the young, impetuous Cleopatra (Natashia Durand), who sees power as equaling unwavering deference, and the aging Caesar (Kevin Anderson), whose holds that ruling well requires greater wisdom, responsibility and self-restraint.

Yet while Caesar chastises Cleopatra for taking revenge on an inferior who dared insult her, we’re left unsure of how Shaw views Caesar’s benign dictatorship; it feels, in fact, as though apology is being made at best, Caesar’s "enlightened" despotism romanticized, at worst.

(For that matter, while human beings may be no more moral than they were in the days of the pharaohs, it was certainly possible for Shaw even in the late 19th century to argue that genuine social, democratic progress had been made.)

So ideas float about, but remain undeveloped. Perhaps something was lost in the abridgement of what I understand was Shaw’s far plumper original text. It’s certainly not the fault of the talented cast, from the baritoned Jordan to the assured Anderson to the scene-stealing Tobias Hughes as a wussy king. (Durand, sadly, is rather short shrifted by her role, which mostly reduces Cleopatra to the status of sulky teenager.)

Still, this remains a diverting 90 minutes of theatre, with the cast successfully seizing our attention. What they might do with a better script, we’ll have to wait for the next Master Playwright Festival, perhaps.