‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’: WWII DESERT CAMPAIGN

The time: 1942. As the cobblestones of Europe ring with the hideous gavotte of war, there is trouble in North Africa as well. Black-helmeted Fascists strut across the sand toward Alexandria, its only hope a gallant band of Tommies captained by . . . Antony and Cleopatra?

Actually, the battle scenes are the best part of Tony Richardson’s staging of “Antony and Cleopatra” for the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Between the flares, the gunfire and the dust stirred up by the sand--real sand, a whole stageful of it--we get a keener than usual taste of the particular discomforts of desert war.

Otherwise this is a bleak trek through a long, long play. “Antony and Cleopatra” is always patchy, but we can usually count on the poetry for some refreshment, and on Cleopatra herself.

Not here. Rosalind Cash’s Cleopatra is cloudy and strained. Her smile at the curtain call tells how relieved she is to come out from under all that language. And Mitchell Ryan’s Antony is more like a reliable squad commander than a touchy general. Director Harrison hasn’t found a way to put his two stars in the same play.

So he has gone on without them. Where Jack O’Brien put the play in MGM Technicolor in his recent Old Globe production, Harrison puts it in austere wartime black-and-white. The only burst of gold comes at the end, as Cleopatra joins the immortals.

The war is World War II: Rommell’s Afrika Corps campaign. Octavius (Kyle Secor) and his troops are the Nazis; Antony and his troops are the British; Cleopatra and her court are black.

This is one way to remind us that there are three forces in the play, not two. It may also be an attempt to say something about white colonialism. But the World War II metaphor gets in the way and makes Antony’s forces too much the good guys. We forget that this is really the story of a civil war.

Another problem: With a stage full of real sand, we always seem to be in Egypt, whereas the play switches between Egypt and Rome. For example, Octavius’ sister (Ann Hearn) seems to have scheduled her wedding to Antony for the desert, Cleopatra’s territory. A bare stage may not be very sexy, but it does travel well.

The modern-dress aspects of the play also present some problems. Antony shoots himself rather than falling on his sword, making it less likely that he would miss. (Perhaps he should have used his bayonet.) At one point the cast comes out with newspapers, and we seem to be on the verge of a sketch from “Oh, What a Lovely War.”

It is, frankly, a little silly--all this conceptualization, when the work that this cast really needed to do was on the language of the play: not just the poetry of the lines, but their train of thought.

It’s an extremely talky play, filled with third-party descriptions of what is going on back in Rome, or Alexandria, and this stuff can’t just be declaimed. We’ve got to follow it, and to understand where the speaker stands on it. It doesn’t happen often here.

The silliness reaches its peak when a huge webbed frame descends from heaven, rather like the light bridge in “Starlight Express” (including the electric hum), and picks up the wounded Antony, like a fly in a flour sifter. Later this square becomes the bearer for Cleopatra’s 10-mile-long funeral dress.

Designer’s theater to the rescue (Timian Alsaker was the designer). But a brain-dead patient doesn’t come to life just because a lot of expensive support systems are using up current. This “Antony and Cleopatra” goes through the motions, but its life signs are nil.

‘ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA’

Shakespeare’s tragedy, at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Director Tony Richardson. Producer Diane White. Sets, lighting and costumes Timian Alsaker. Original music John Addison. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Choreographer Tanya Everett. Assistant lighting designer Douglas D. Smith. Stage manager Jill Johnson. With J. Edwards, David Kagen, Warren Munson, Rosalind Cash, Mitchell Ryan, CCH Pounder, Lance Roberts, Michelle L. Simms, Dan Tullis Jr., Mark Christopher Lawrence, Jan-Edward Demery, John Goodman, Kyle Secor, Alan Mandell, Geof Prysirr, Ron Campbell, Michael Joseph Cutt, Patrick Kirkpatrick, Brian Brophy, Ann Hearn, George McDaniel, David Kagen, Patrick Kilpatrick, Lance Roberts. Plays Tuesdays-Sundays at 8 p.m., with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Closes Aug. 2. Tickets $10.50-$25. 514 S. Spring St. (213) 627-5599.