This month, London’s best queer cabaret venue, The Glory, hosts a unique adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Created and directed by award-winning director Robert Chevara,, the play stars four of London’s most fabulous queer talents, Alan Turkington as Antony, Johnny Woo as Cleopatra, Alexis Gregory as Charmain and Jonathan Blake as Dolabella.
Robert is a visionary, radical disrupter, so expect a unique interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic play. For starters, this is a 100% queer version. Then instead of Rome and Egypt, the setting is a nightclub – somewhere like Berghain, Berlin. Where lovers cling together, who have been clubbing for 4 days, so exhausted they cannot part. For whom the drugs don’t work, but who cleave to each other symbiotically because it’s all they can do? Entangled forever.
The play explores the ruined, alchemical relationship between Antony and Cleopatra, and delves into the psyche of two peoples whose narcissism and self-destructiveness make them impossible, but also alluring. Lovers who live in a constant public gaze, lit by lightning. It’ll feature karaoke and be both sexy and fleet. Unexpected. Think the radical retelling of Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Blvd. Or Ivo van Hove’s A View from The Bridge. Then think again.
Robert says “One of the inspirations was a man whose heart stopped on a dance floor three separate times (like Liza Minelli in the TV series Halston). Each time his boyfriend was there and saved his life, but when the doctors told him that he couldn’t ever go clubbing again, he tried to commit suicide. Like Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, a “love-death” in all its forms.”
Sounds unique. This is sure to sell out, so grab your tickets while you can.
https://www.outsavvy.com/event/16746/anthony-and-cleopatra THE GLORY 281 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8AS 27th November (Preview) 28th / 30th November
Queerguru’s Contributing Editor Ris Fatah is a successful fashion/luxury business consultant (when he can be bothered) who divides and wastes his time between London and Ibiza. He is a lover of all things queer, feminist, and human rights in general. @ris.fatah
