Skyline StageWorks makes its inaugural bow with Patricia Henritze and Shawna Tucker’s reduced take on Shakespeare’s tragedy. “Antony and Cleopatra: Undone” feels more unfinished than undone. But as a vehicle for Tucker’s performance as Cleo, it’s a pretty decent barge.
John Arthur Lewis’ compact but tonally uneven staging brings in some toy-theater elements, particularly in the famous naval battle of Actium, which is represented here by model boats and a “sea” created out of a recently rumpled bedsheet from the Egyptian queen’s love nest with her Roman general. Cleopatra’s running away with her troops from that battle encapsulates a central conundrum for the character: Out of the bedroom, does she really have any meaningful power?
By stripping the cast down to four — James Sparling’s Antony, Drew Mierzejewski’s Octavius Caesar and Bill Gordon as the all-purpose choric “Player” — Henritze and Tucker’s script itself loses some of the power that comes from the original, in which the title characters are almost never alone together onstage. Are these characters really in love or in love with the idea of love as an extension of public adulation?
Ultimately, though, the script cuts too much for the story to be easily followed by those who don’t already know the play, and it doesn’t add enough new insights to justify the tinkering. The result is an occasionally intriguing but underdone version of what is admittedly one of the more difficult pieces in the Shakespearean canon.
Through Oct. 5, Side Project, 1439 W. Jarvis Ave.; $15 at 312-351-4426 or skylinestageworks.org