‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’ : A SPECTACLE WITHOUT SPARKS

Jack O’Brien’s staging of “Antony and Cleopatra” for the Old Globe Theatre is as splendidly fitted out as Cleopatra’s barge, and moves at the same pace. We get the impression of two great empires on a collision course. We get the sense of important people saying important things. We don’t get much personal emotion.

O’Brien and his designers see the play as a movie, a wide-screen costume epic of the DeMille variety, but in good taste. Richard Seger’s unit set is monumental without getting bogged down in ersatz Egyptian decor. With a pass of the lights (by David F. Segal) the sandstone floor of Cleopatra’s marble-columned palace becomes the desert itself, cold under the moon.

O’Brien has always had a marvelous eye for vistas, and his production abounds in them. The marble columns can move, framing a new “shot.” The palace floor can rise, becoming the top of Cleopatra’s gold-faced tomb, the altar stone on which she will sacrifice herself.

Lewis Brown’s costumes are equally grateful to the eye. Cleopatra (JoBeth Williams) and her women start out in hot colors, but narrow to blacks and whites as immortality approaches. Antony (Robert Foxworth) favors simple russet cloaks, a reminder that his career is past high summer. Young Octavius (John Bolger) wears blacks with hints of purple and gold, the color of empire.

The production has weight and balance, aided by a musical score by Conrad Susa that’s neither too much nor too little. Some of the voices have music, too. Foxworth, for instance, can roar in tune, a must for a commanding classical actor.

But sparks don’t fly in this “Antony and Cleopatra.” The two stars do very well with the last section of the play, when death brings out the fineness and the courage of our heedless lovers. We see that this isn’t just a costume epic, but a tragedy.

But where’s the heedlessness? Williams’ Cleopatra plays at it, but remains fatally well-bred. Even though she starts the play pregnant by Antony, you can’t imagine her slumming with him in the stews of Alexandria. The police would return her to the palace immediately.

At the same time, she’s not particularly shrewd. You can’t say that this Cleopatra is manipulating Antony for purposes of power. She’s sincere enough. It’s just hard to see her as someone who loves to go over the top. Antony could find this kind of mistress in Rome.

It’s hard to imagine him slumming too. Foxworth may be going on the interesting assumption that Antony isn’t an experienced voluptuary but, in truth, an honest soldier who has been led astray by a high-powered slut.

That’s certainly Antony’s reading of the situation. But line after line belies it. In any case, we need to see more bad behavior from Antony, if the return to good behavior at the end of the play is to mean anything. Foxworth’s Antony carouses by the book. He needs to show the joy of throwing it away.

Some faces in the supporting cast are of interest. Julian Gamble’s Pompeius is engagingly rough-hewn, one of the few characters in the play who seems to be going on instinct. Roderick Horn makes Enobarbus something new: a feeling cynic. Jonathan McMurtry has a lovely, creepy cameo as the soothsayer offering Cleopatra “joy of the worm,” a phrase he fondles as if it were itself a pet snake. (But we can’t forget that we earlier saw McMurtry as Lepidus.)

Sally Smythe and Pippa Pearthree are nicely bold as Cleopatra’s ladies in waiting. Bolger’s Octavius is impressively calculated as long as he keeps to a conversational range, but when he emotes he sounds stagey. (Perhaps we should blame that on Octavius’ youth rather than charging it to the actor.) The smaller roles don’t have the finish of first-class Shakespeare.

In sum, a handsome outline, with a lot left to fill in.

‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’

Shakespeare’s tragedy, at the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego. Presented on a grant from the Allied-Signal (West) Foundation. Director Jack O’Brien. Scenic designer Richard Seger. Costumes Lewis Brown. Lighting David F. Segal. Sound Michael Holten. Composer Conrad Susa. Dramaturge Diana Maddox. Stage manager Douglas Pagliotti. Assistant stage manager D. Adams. With Robert Foxworth, John Bolger, Jonathan McMurtry, JoBeth Williams, Julian Gamble, Roderick Horn, Gary Armagnac, Scott Allegrucci, John Walcott, Rene Moreno, Vyto Ruginis, Stephen Godwin, William Anton, Henry J. Jordan, Ray Chambers, David R. Conner, Davis Hall, Hubert Baron Kelly, Joseph Palmas, James R. Winker, Marissa Chibas, Sally Smythe, Pippa Pearthree, Kate Frank, Mark Guin, Randy Reinholz, Andrew Dolan, Victoria Oritsematosan Edremoda, Mark Hofflund, Marc Raia. Plays Tuesdays-Sundays at 8 p.m., with Saturday-Sunday matinees at 2, through Aug. 30. Tickets $16.50-$21.50. Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts, Balboa Park, San Diego. (619) 239-2255.