Editing Antony and Cleopatra (section)

==== Performing gender and crossdressing ====

===== The performance of gender =====
''Antony and Cleopatra'' is essentially a male-dominated play in which the character of Cleopatra takes significance as one of few female figures and definitely the only strong female character. As Oriana Palusci says in her article "When Boys or Women Tell Their Dreams: Cleopatra and the Boy Actor", "Cleopatra constantly occupies the centre, if not of the stage, certainly of the discourse, often charged with sexual innuendos and disparaging tirades, of the male Roman world".<ref name="Pal" /> We see the significance of this figure by the constant mention of her, even when she is not on stage.

What is said about Cleopatra is not always what one would normally say about a ruler; the image that is created makes the audience expect "to see on stage not a noble Sovereign, but a dark, dangerous, evil, sensual and lewd creature who has harnessed the 'captain's heart".<ref name="Pal" />{{rp|p.605}} This dangerously beautiful woman is difficult for Shakespeare to create because all characters, male or female, were played by men. Phyllis Rackin points out that one of the most descriptive scenes of Cleopatra is spoken by Enobarbus: "in his famous set speech, Enobarbus evokes Cleopatra's arrival on the Cynus".<ref name="Rackin" /> It is an elaborate description that could never possibly be portrayed by a young boy actor. It is in this way that "before the boy [playing Cleopatra] can evoke Cleopatra's greatness, he must remind us that he cannot truly represent it".<ref name="Rackin" />{{rp|p.210}} The images of Cleopatra must be described rather than seen on stage. Rackin points out that "it is a commonplace of the older criticism that Shakespeare had to rely upon his poetry and his audience's imagination to evoke Cleopatra's greatness because he knew the boy actor could not depict it convincingly".<ref name="Rackin" />{{rp|p.210}}

The constant comments of the Romans about Cleopatra often undermine her, representing the Roman thought on the foreign and particularly of Egyptians. From the perspective of the reason-driven Romans, Shakespeare's "Egyptian queen repeatedly violates the rules of decorum".<ref name="Rackin" />{{rp|p.202}} It is because of this distaste that Cleopatra "embodies political power, a power which is continuously underscored, denied, nullified by the Roman counterpart".<ref name="Pal" />{{rp|p.610}} To many of Antony's crew, his actions appear extravagant and over the top: "Antony's devotion is inordinate and therefore irrational".<ref name="Rackin" />{{rp|p.210}} It is no wonder, then, that she is such a subordinated queen.

And yet she is also shown as having real power in the play. When threatened to be made a fool and fully overpowered by Octavius, she takes her own life: "She is not to be silenced by the new master, she is the one who will silence herself: 'My resolution and my hands I'll trust/ None about Caesar' (IV. 15.51–52)".<ref name="Pal" />{{rp|p.606–607}} From this, connections can be made between power and the performance of the female role as portrayed by Cleopatra.

===== Interpretations of crossdressing within the play =====
Scholars have speculated that Shakespeare's original intention was to have Antony appear in Cleopatra's clothes and vice versa in the beginning of the play. This possible interpretation seems to perpetuate the connections being made between gender and power. Gordon P. Jones elaborates on the importance of this detail:

<blockquote>Such a saturnalian exchange of costumes in the opening scene would have opened up a number of important perspectives for the play's original audience. It would immediately have established the sportiveness of the lovers. It would have provided a specific theatrical context for Cleopatra's later reminiscence about another occasion on which she "put my tires and mantles on him, whilst / I wore his sword Philippan" (II.v.22–23). It would have prepared the ground for Cleopatra's subsequent insistence on appearing "for a man" (III.vii.18) to bear a charge in the war; in doing so, it would also have prepared the audience for Antony's demeaning acquiescence in her usurpation of the male role.<ref name="Jones" /></blockquote>

The evidence that such a costume change was intended includes Enobarbus' false identification of Cleopatra as Antony:
<blockquote><poem>
Domitius Enobarbus: Hush! here comes Antony.
Charmian: Not he; the queen.
</poem></blockquote>

Enobarbus could have made this error because he was used to seeing Antony in the queen's garments. It can also be speculated that Philo was referring to Antony cross-dressing in Act 1, scene 1:
<blockquote><poem>
Philo: Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
</poem></blockquote>

In the context of cross-dressing, "not Antony" could mean "when Antony is dressed as Cleopatra."

If Shakespeare had indeed intended for Antony to crossdress, it would have drawn even more similarities between Antony and Hercules, a comparison that many scholars have noted many times before.<ref name="r5" /><ref name="r6" /><ref name="r7" /> Hercules (who is said to be an ancestor of Antony) was forced to wear [[Omphale|Queen Omphale]]'s clothing while he was her indentured servant. The Omphale myth is an exploration of gender roles in Greek society. Shakespeare might have paid homage to this myth as a way of exploring gender roles in his own.<ref name="Jones" />{{rp|p.65}}

However, it has been noted that, while women dressing as men (i.e., a boy actor acting a female character who dresses as a man) are common in Shakespeare, the reverse (i.e., a male adult actor dressing as a woman) is all but non-existent, leaving aside Antony's debated case.

===== Critics' interpretations of boys portraying female characters =====
''Antony and Cleopatra'' also contains self-references to the crossdressing as it would have been performed historically on the London stage. For instance, in Act Five, Scene Two, Cleopatra exclaims, "Antony/ Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see/ Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness/ I'th' posture of a whore" (ll. 214–217). Many scholars interpret these lines as a [[metatheatrical]] reference to Shakespeare's own production, and by doing so comments on his own stage. Shakespeare critics such as Tracey Sedinger interpret this as Shakespeare's critique of the London stage, which, by the perpetuation of boy actors playing the part of the woman, serves to establish the superiority of the male spectator's sexuality.<ref name="Sed" /> The male-male relationship, some critics have offered, between the male audience and the boy actor performing the female sexuality of the play would have been less threatening than had the part been played by a woman. It is in this manner that the London stage cultivated in its audience a chaste and obedient female subject, while positioning male sexuality as dominant. Shakespeare critics argue that the metatheatrical references in ''Antony and Cleopatra'' seem to critique this trend and the presentation of Cleopatra as a sexually empowered individual supports their argument that Shakespeare seems to be questioning the oppression of female sexuality in London society.<ref name="Sed" />{{rp|p.63}} The crossdresser, then, is not a visible object but rather a structure "enacting the failure of a dominant [[epistemology]] in which knowledge is equated with visibility".<ref name="Sed" />{{rp|p.64}} What is being argued here is that the [[cross-dressing]] on the London stage challenges the dominant epistemology of Elizabethan society that associated sight with knowledge. The boy actors portraying female sexuality on the London stage contradicted such a simple [[ontology]].

Critics such as Rackin interpret Shakespeare's metatheatrical references to the crossdressing on stage with less concern for societal elements and more of a focus on the dramatic ramifications. Rackin argues in her article on "Shakespeare's Boy Cleopatra" that Shakespeare manipulates the crossdressing to highlight a motif of the play—recklessness—which is discussed in the article as the recurring elements of acting without properly considering the consequences. Rackin cites the same quote, "Antony/ Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see/ Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness/ I'th' posture of a whore" to make the argument that here the audience is reminded of the very same treatment Cleopatra is receiving on Shakespeare's stage (since she is being portrayed by a boy actor) (V.ii.214–217). Shakespeare, utilizing the metatheatrical reference to his own stage, perpetuates his motif of recklessness by purposefully shattering "the audience's acceptance of the dramatic illusion".<ref name="Rackin" />{{rp|p.201}}

Other critics argue that the crossdressing as it occurs in the play is less of a mere convention, and more of an embodiment of dominant power structures. Critics such as Charles Forker argue that the boy actors were a result of what "we may call androgyny".<ref name="Forker" /> His article argues that "women were barred from the stage for their own sexual protection" and because "patriarchally acculturated audiences presumably found it intolerable to see English women—those who would represent mothers, wives, and daughters—in sexually compromising situations".<ref name="Forker" />{{rp|p.10}} Essentially, the crossdressing occurs as a result of the patriarchally structured society.