Cleopatra at the British Institute

 

The British Institute puts on different cultural events that are open to the public. I happen to catch the Thursday April 24th event Cleopatra – Exploration to Performance, An Actress’ Process by Bari Hochwald from the Florence International Theatre Company. The event was part of Shakespeare Week 2008 at the Institute. It was an interesting one hour overview of how the speaker studied Shakespeare’s play and constructed for herself the character of Cleopatra. The speaker pointed to various passages that gave insight into what kind of person Cleopatra might be. In particular, we spent some time looking at the very last lines of Cleopatra before she applies the asp to herself. ‘With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie…’