Cleopatra informs Caesar that she’s run away. He believes he’s either dreaming or gone mad, but realizes his error once Cleopatra emerges from her hiding place and introduces herself. When she calls out to him, Caesar initially believes the sphinx is talking to him. Julius Caesar approaches and praises the sphinx, failing to notice the young girl sleeping between its paws. Cleopatra’s chief nurse, Ftatateeta, emerges from the palace and informs the guards that Cleopatra, who is terrified of the Romans, has run away.Ĭleopatra is sound asleep between the paws of a Sphinx. A Nubian sentinel runs inside the palace to warn everyone of the advancing army. A wounded Egyptian soldier named Bel Affris staggers through the gate to warn the Egyptians that Julius Caesar’s powerful Roman army is on its way to conquer Egypt and will reach them soon. The action shifts to Cleopatra’s palace in Syria, where she has been banished by her brother Ptolemy, with whom she is fighting for control of Egypt. Ra recounts how Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus and chased him to Egypt, where he was ultimately assassinated by Lucius Septimius in 48 B.C.E. He also establishes the origins of Julius Caesar’s rivalry with Pompey, explaining that the gods favored Caesar, who lived boldly and had an affinity for progress and exploration. The "big success" narcissist who thinks a "trophy wife" is a good idea might learn plenty from a trip to Blockbuster and a two-dollar investment.The Egyptian god Ra addresses the play’s audience directly, belittling them for their ignorance and insulting contemporary (mid-Victorian) British society. But as in any Shaw play, it's the playwright's sophisticated revelations that matter. And supporters like Robson, Granger and the rest add plenty.
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Rains ("Casablanca," "The Invisible Man") and Leigh bring the wise, amused, self-effacing old man and the desperate, manipulative, narcissistic young woman in Shaw's play far more credibly to life than was the case in the DeMille or Manciewicz films. We already know the resolution, it's the unfolding of the drama that matters. The relationships here are no different from those in the Mankiewicz mess, but they move along in far more sophisticated - and entertaining - fashion here.
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But to Rains's conflicted but self-suspect Caesar, she's about as transparent as that look-alike, late-night, hottie-cum-biblical-scholar who inherited Gene Scott's TV ministry.
Shaw gave -his- Cleo a far more complex character than Young or Mankiewicz gave their Cleo's this alabaster Leigh is both adolescent and guileful. I've been a sucker for Vivien Leigh since I watched her whip the boys into shape in "GWTW," but as interesting as she was there, she's miles beyond Scarlet O'Hara here. One could hardly call the 1934 or 1963 films "insightful romps." This, however. Shaw always had a great story to tell - and a something worthwhile to -say- and he (or his characters) almost invariably told and said it well. But it doesn't -feel- like -any- of those. It even looks like the Taylor-Burton-Harrison marathon done almost two decades later. The film -looks- like "Quo Vadis" or "Samson and Delilah" (of more or less the same vintage). For those who haven't discovered him yet, this colorful, fast-paced rendition of "C&C" makes a nifty portal. "The Devil's Disciple," "Major Barbara," "Arms and the Man," "Candida," "You Never Can Tell." Witty, clever, insightful, intriguing. Shaw's hardly a speck on the windshield of American cultural consciousness anymore.
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