SOURCE: Kellaway, Kate. Review of Antony and Cleopatra. New Statesman (30 October 1998).

In the following excerpted review of Sean Mathias's 1998 National Theatre production of Antony and Cleopatra, Kellaway suggests that Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren are not credible as lovers. She characterizes Mirren's Cleopatra as both capricious and scheming, and disparages Rickman's Antony as understated and tight-lipped.

At the beginning of Sean Mathias's production of Antony and Cleopatra it seems we are witnessing the morning after a golden night before. Antony (Alan Rickman) has an exhausted look and his voice hasn't woken up properly; it is as though his very character were crushed linen. Cleopatra (Helen Mirren) is also languid, displaying herself on a bank of carpet-covered bolsters amid resting soldiers and beautiful girls—accessories to her majesty.

Playing either Antony or Cleopatra must be like trying to fill larger-than-life gold goblets to the brim. It is essential that...