This is where it all started for us.
Some years ago, at the Peoples Improv Theater's first "Sketchprov" festival, we got the suggestions of "Tango" along with "Antony & Cleopatra" at the same time. What unfolded was something like this extremely historically accurate scene.
Months went by afterward. Even a year or so, but we kept thinking about how tickled we had been to play Antony and Cleopatra that night. And we started thinking about other historical couples. We started asking for historical couples for suggestions in our improv shows, and we started thinking about what they have to teach us.
What keeps surprising us about Antony & Cleopatra is that they were hardly spring chickens when this all began. Cleopatra was 28 - very young by modern standards, but already a mother, and nearing the average lifespan of one of her constituents. Antony, battle hardened Antony, was in his forties. We can understand Romeo & Juliet because those two are a) fictional and b) ridiculous, self-absorbed teenagers.
But Antony & Cleopatra, two real people with the world at their feet, brought ruin to themselves and their kingdoms because they just couldn't get enough of each other.
And talk about grand gestures - whoa. When Cleopatra was first summoned to meet Antony (which she could have taken as a huge insult), she turned up dressed as Aphrodite, with her pages dressed as cupids, and rowing a ship with silver oars.
So they... weren't perfect, but a little of Antony & Cleopatra from time to time is a good thing.
PS - here's a link to Tom Holland's engrossing "Rubicon" - which covers these two, along with Cesar, Octavian, and the rise of the age of Cesars. If you enjoyed the HBO series "Rome", here's one of the key sources. It might be more historically accurate than our video. Maybe. A bit.
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