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Kate Kellaway (review date 30 October 1998)

SOURCE: Kellaway, Kate. Review of Antony and Cleopatra. New Statesman (30 October 1998).

[In the following excerpted review of Sean Mathias's 1998 National Theatre production of Antony and Cleopatra, Kellaway suggests that Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren are not credible as lovers. She characterizes Mirren's Cleopatra as both capricious and scheming, and disparages Rickman's Antony as understated and tight-lipped.]

At the beginning of Sean Mathias's production of Antony and Cleopatra it seems we are witnessing the morning after a golden night before. Antony (Alan Rickman) has an exhausted look and his voice hasn't woken up properly; it is as though his very character were crushed linen. Cleopatra (Helen Mirren) is also languid, displaying herself on a bank of carpet-covered bolsters amid resting soldiers and beautiful girls—accessories to her majesty.

Playing either Antony...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
   1. Frederick Turner (essay date 1999)
   2. Ania Loomba (essay date 2002)
3. Criticism: Character Studies
   1. Jacqueline Vanhoutte (essay date spring 2000)
   2. Cristina León Alfar (essay date 2003)
4. Criticism: Production Reviews
   1. David Murray (review date 22 October 1998)
   2. Kate Kellaway (review date 30 October 1998)
   3. Alastair Macaulay (review date 3 August 1999)
   4. Katherine Duncan-Jones (review date 6 August 1999)
   5. Ian Shuttleworth (review date 21 January 2000)
   6. Alastair Macaulay (review date 25 April 2002)
5. Criticism: Themes
   1. John Michael Archer (essay date spring-summer 1994)
   2. Arthur Lindley (essay date 2003)
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright