14 - Rome, Shakespeare, and the Dynamics of the Cleopatra Reception

Summary

Almost at the end of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (ca. 1607), the tragic queen expresses her fears (5.2.214–21):

Saucy lictors

Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers

Ballad us out o’ tune. The quick comedians

Extemporally will stage us, and present

Our Alexandrian revels; Antony

Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see

Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness

I’ the posture of a whore.

This metatheatrical prophecy is revisited in the second season of HBO–BBC's Rome as it begins and concludes with Antony's orgiastic excesses and a shrill Cleopatra's twin attempts to prostitute herself for survival. The Cleopatra scenes are indeed heavily indebted to Shakespeare's play but, as Jonathan Stamp and Bruno Heller note in the DVD commentary to the last episode, they do try to find “a new way into something familiar.” In doing so they have crafted a novel and modern reception of the Cleopatra story by invoking Shakespeare – and film – to underscore their departures, by emphasizing some frequently neglected parts of Plutarch, and most notably by attempting to tell the story of both Antony and Cleopatra while weaving their stories into the series’ story arcs of Octavian and Pullo. The result is a creative and successful addition to the Cleopatra reception.

CLEOPATRA AND ROME

Cleopatra's appearance in episode 8 (“Caesarion”) of Rome's first season is discussed in depth by me elsewhere.2 In this episode, the fic-tionalized core protagonists Pullo and Vorenus rescue the drug-addled princess from her brother's minions. On the way back to Alexandria, the slave Charmian detoxes Cleopatra and devises a plan to ensure her mistress’ pregnancy by enlisting first Vorenus, who declines, and then a more willing Pullo. After emerging disheveled from a proper Plutarchan sack in a pose mirroring Claudette Colbert's in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), she is able to seduce Caesar, secure her throne, and give birth to Caesarion, as Pullo cheers lustily for his progeny. I have argued that this episode shows a keen awareness of Shakespeare, Plutarch, and several twentieth-century films. Her appearance, initial stupor, and serpent-like sensuality were quite a shock to many viewers. Cleopatra appears in the second season in episodes 14, 20, 21, and 22, which also bear witness to similar influences and offer their own novel depictions.