I’ve seen many reviews that laud the way this play made characters seem realistic while having opposing traits, such as clever and foolish. But I can’t for the life of me figure out why Cleopatra would fall in love with the useless dummy that Shakespeare wrote Antony to be… That simple problem made it impossible for me to even wonder at her true feelings, a major draw of the play.

(Note that I rate Shakespeare plays relative to other Shakespeare plays.)

I loved this play in many ways, but mostly for its ironic comedy, which is odd, since the play is supposed to be a tragedy. The snide comments of Enobarbus were especially fun, and the play gets darkly slapstick when Antony botches his suicide, and while bleeding from the gut, or groin, or whatever, must be hoisted up onto a monument by Cleopatra and her retinue, who joke and complain about his weight. Once aloft, he wants to pontificate, but Cleo shuts him up, even though these are the last words he will utter. The deaths of the lovers reminded me of the Titus Andronicus, more than the later tragedies.

Like an older, more historic version of Romeo and Juliet. I didn't think it was as heroic as I was expecting. There was lots of emphasis on the words "noble", "honour", and "honest" which bears great weight on values and characters' views of each other and themselves. I also found it interesting that this book had the greatest number of messengers and scene changes, because it covers a wider distance--and the space decreases as the play goes on. For great war soldiers and love, I couldn't really actually tell if the love and fighting was true or valourous. This historic tragedy was not as emotional as I'd have liked.