Cleopatra Part 2...and Elizabeth Taylor

Honestly, I hate mentioning this, but Elizabeth Taylor passed away and perhaps one of her famous roles was Cleopatra.  After my last post, I've become unpleasantly (and temporarily) obsessed with Cleopatra.  Admittedly, I know very little about Elizabeth Taylor and he life, other than her many marriages, obtuse sexuality, and role as Cleopatra.  Indeed, there appears to be some similarities between Liz and Cleo.  Perhaps it was after Liz performed as Cleo that part of the character never left her mind.  In Shakespeare, Cleopatra was the "fattest female role in the entire range of drama" (Frye), but her true identity lies only on stage.  Unlike Elizabeth Taylor, who has an off-stage life, our knowledge of Shakespeare's Cleopatra is only what is told through the play.  When people question if she really loved Antony it is suspected that one does not understand just who Cleopatra is and isn't.  "Her love, like everything else about her, is theatrical, and in the theatre illusion and reality are the same thing.  Incidentally, she never soliloquizes; she talks to herself occasionally, but someone else is always listening and she always knows it." (Frye, 127)

What is our obsession with Cleopatra?  I admit that I dressed as her for Halloween quite a few years back, but to me it was just a costume pulled off of a shelf.  My escorts were friends dressed as Cheech and Chong...not quite Caesar and Antony.  I didn't feel Egyptian, (or Greek), or powerful or sexual...I didn't feel anything because I didn't even know who she was...and the thing is that we still don't know her and any speculation made is as good as true in my book.  If I would have read Antony and Cleopatra before picking out the costume I certainly would not have dressed like her, or perhaps I would have inherited  her attitude for the evening.  She was selfish and she needed to be seen.  She took the battle of Actium to sea then betrayed Antony when she pulled her fleet out.  Frye believes she was probably thinking something along the lines of "those silly men and the games they play...they're not even paying attention to me, so I'm leaving."  Cleopatra later asks Enobarbus if it is Antony or her who is at fault and this appears to be an actual question on her mind.  Questions such as this make one think that possibly she isn't being selfish, but that she is simply being Cleopatra.


It seems somewhat of a disservice to Antony if I only talk about Cleopatra, but one has to wonder the identity of Antony without Cleopatra?  At least when thinking about the play, it seems that Antony would have been more of a leader without Cleopatra, but would he have been less of a man?


In closing, I want to leave you with more words from Frye...

"What is true of heroism is true of love as well.  

There are no superhuman lovers, and all attempts at such love have been tragic."