Antony and Cleopatra

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Registered: 04-08-2009
Antony and Cleopatra
5
Wed, 09-22-2010 - 2:58pm

I'm a huge theater lover, and went to see this play last Saturday night. I didn't know the story beforehand.

It's Shakespeare, so it's a bit hard to understand, but in a nutshell, this is what I got:

Antony was married but involved in an affair with Cleopatra. Lotsa passion, "big" love, obsessive, fantasy-like, yada yada--you know the drill.

Antony's wife dies.

He goes home to take care of details, but while he's away from Egypt and Cleopatra, he agrees to marry Caesar's sister for political purposes.

However, that doesn't stop him from going back to Cleopatra.

She's expecting a single Antony to return, but finds out he is indeed remarried, and freaks. Does that stop her from taking him back?

Nope. Because their love is just too passionate and amazing and all that flowery crap.

So, Antony and Cleopatra continue their affair, which becomes so obsessive and so toxic that it colors Antony's decisions related to battles and warfare, and he ends up making stupid mistakes because he's blinded by his "love" for Cleopatra.

But there is no trust between them (of course) and he gets so angry at her for her part in his mistakes that eventually that he tries to kill her. She freaks out and fakes her death because she believes then he'll have compassion and love her again. He gets word that she's "dead," and can't handle it, so he falls on his sword. Cleo gets to hold him as he takes his last breath, then decides she can't live without him and kills herself with the bite of an asp.

And I walked out, going OMG. This was written in the 1600s. Nothing in Affair Land has changed over the last several thousand years. They have always been and will always be tragic and toxic.

I know it was just a play, but was one of those "I was meant to see that" moments, you know? Has anyone else ever had one of those moments when you saw or heard something and it was like God/the Universe/Higher Power orchestrated it as if to really drive a point home?

-Juliette

by xxiced






Edited 9/22/2010 3:06 pm ET by juliette09
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Registered: 06-17-2010
Wed, 09-22-2010 - 4:03pm

Can't you just see Cleo posting on EAS?

Ah, fair EAS sisters. Alas, I have come to thee for guidance. Creeps in the thoughts of pettiness this day, and all my yesterdays, have they been lighted by fools? The way of this A has been but a dusty death, walking in the shadows until my hearth doth take no more.

Then she goes on: frigging XAP is out AGAIN doing whatever Caesar wants. I swear, they might as well be a couple. And when he's not out killing and posing for marble statues, do you think he could at least give me a call on his cell??

Bodhi

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Registered: 03-08-2009
Wed, 09-22-2010 - 4:06pm
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Registered: 04-11-2010
Thu, 09-23-2010 - 6:52am

I love this thread. I totally get what you are sayin Juliette- the obsessive, intense love, and the inevitable crappy end, are such global and timeless concepts arent they.



A man wrote this in 1600, for theatre goers in the 1600's, about a romance that happened BC, and was made into movies and tv shows in the 20th century.



We are just the tragic fools of 2010! There will be another batch in 2011, 2016, 2050 and onwards.



Bodhi- you should be a writer! Love it!



Iggyx

You are what you consistently do
You are what you consistently do
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Registered: 04-08-2009
Thu, 09-23-2010 - 8:39am

Girrlll, look at you gettin' all Shakespearean!

I'm impressed . . . I AM a writer, but "thou dost put me to shame."

I couldn't have come up with a post like yours in a million years--I don't know how to speak Shakespeare. :)

I had another moment where I was like, "I think I was meant to see that" during the movie "She's Just Not That Into You." If you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about in the scene when the guy shoves his mistress in the closet in his office, and then makes love to his wife after she shows up at his work to seduce him. And his "girlfriend" had to listen to the whole thing from the closet.

I literally thought I was going to throw up during that scene--I almost left the theater. That was one of the most poignant pictures of what it feels like to be TOW--shoved in a closet when reality comes knocking. I felt so sick and disgusted that I had allowed myself to be reduced to that. :(

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Registered: 06-17-2010
Thu, 09-23-2010 - 9:23am

Ha Ha - it's easy, you just put a lot of fancy words together that make no sense :)

I've not seen that movie, but I know exactly how you felt during that scene. We've all been pushed into the proverbial closet. Years ago XAP and I were having lunch out of town and he spotted one of his kid's coaches at the restaurant - he asked me if I could leave several minutes after him. It was humiliating to sit there and watch him chat as he walked out "alone". Needless to say, I said nothing the entire way back. But did I end it? Nope. Ahhhh, those were the days.

Bodhi