It may be unfair, but one is judged by the company one keeps, and GableStage is currently in very good company. Long a booster of Miami-raised playwright-director Tarell Alvin McCraney, the Coral Gables theater is currently presenting this hot property’s latest audacious venture, his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
But at least as important as the work — which edits down the text and moves much of the action to 18th-century Haiti — is that the event is being co-produced at Miami Beach’s Colony Theatre with two of the globe’s most distinguished troupes, New York’s Public Theater and Great Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company.
What the three companies have in common is McCraney, who is the production’s reason for being. The RSC initiated the adaptation, commissioning him to create a “radical edit” of the historical tragedy on the duel themes of the power of love and the love of power. The impulse was surely to make the Bard’s play more attractive to younger audiences, as McCraney previously had with his foreshortened Hamlet, and perhaps to attract a more ethnic audience with his most radical notion of transforming the environment from ancient Rome and Egypt to 18th-century Haiti under French rule.
While that change brings with it some confusion, as references to the earlier locales keep getting in the way, the production’s chief asset is the story clarity rendered by the well-spoken, classically trained actors. Primary among them is Brit Jonathan Cake as Mark Antony, the noble Roman warrior reduced to a fool for love over the exotic, seductive queen Cleopatra. She is played by Joaquina Kalukango, a Juilliard-schooled American actress who assumes a thick Creole-tinged accent. Some of her cadences seem to fight with Shakespeare’s poetry, but Kalukango manages to overcome such problems, projecting a regal command that almost transcends language.
The Haitian flavor is evident in a group of island musicians elevated on Tom Piper’s space, elegant, but evocative set and in the occasional injection of voodoo within the Egyptian arsenal. Overall, the pluses and minuses of the cultural transfer seem about a wash.
For those not that familiar with the play, McCraney’s creation of a narrator to sum up past actions, comment on what lies ahead and generally keep the audience on track is a helpful device. The cast is reduced to a manageable dozen or so, with some clever doubling of roles.
While Britain and New York may be less embracing of this Antony and Cleopatra, since classical theater is so much more available in both places, this is easily some of the best, most elegant and hot-blooded Shakespeare seen in South Florida in many years.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, GableStage at the Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. Continuing through Sunday, Feb. 9. Tickets; $65. Call (305) 445-1119.
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There are times that being a theater reviewer has its drawbacks. Consider the latest mind trip from Miami Shores’ Mad Cat Theatre Company, Mixtape 2: Ummagumma Forza Zuma!, a hodgepodge of nearly two dozen scenes, poems and short films, connected by a sly, nimble cast of the unconventional troupe’s ensemble of players. It makes for an enjoyable, challenging, often perplexing evening that one wants to savor without having to explain.
Although there are some strong dramatic pieces within the eclectic mixtape, it begins with a send-up of jingoistic political ads, with Mad Cat poking fun at its newly adopted hometown of Miami Shores. Company member Erik Fabregat is depicted on-screen running for city ombudsman, a running gag that will late be rebutted by his opponent, real-life politician Ralph de la Portilla.
Of the scene work, the best crafted and performed vignette is The Scottish Play by Theo Reyna. It is not about Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but rather a geopolitical debate between a married couple representing Scotland (Erin Joy Schmidt) and England (Noah Levine), verbally battling over the disposition of their daughter, the crucial commodity Oil (Jessica Farr).
Also powerful is Deborah L. Sherman’s Unearthed, concerning two sets of brothers and sisters readying themselves emotionally for the death of their mother. Another scene that scores is Farr’s Nadie, a racially charged two-character confrontation between a white police officer (Joe Kimble) and a black kid (Troy Davidson) over a tasering incident. Farr tacitly asks the audience to take sides in the standoff, which is bound to bring to mind the Trayvon Martin case.
Either these three pieces are the evening’s strongest or they are simply more conventional and accessible, but they do stand out. Others, like Elena Maria Garcia’s Blind, range from opaque to impenetrable, though perhaps your mileage will vary.
Regardless of how much dandruff you generate from head-scratching, the commitment and versatility of the ensemble cast — all of the above named, plus Carey Brianna Hart — is impressive. You wouldn’t want all theater to be like Ummagumma Forza Zuma!, but a mixed-bag mixtape like this from Mad Cat every few years is more than welcome.
MIXTAPE 2: UMMAGUMMA FORZA ZUMA!, Mad Cat Theatre Company at the Miami Theater Center, 9816 NE 2nd Ave., Miami Shores. Continuing through Sunday. Tickets: $30. Call: (866) 811-4111.