A Deeper Treatment

In All for Love the one great tragic action of the play is all that we really get in the sense of a physical detailing of the personalities of the main characters. Unlike Shakespeare’s version where the characters are determined more through their interactions with those around them. In All for Love we see the characters described more explicitly by the other characters of the play. Instead of the action determining the characters personalities we get a good sense of their personalities from the descriptions provided by others.

I wanted to say a little something on the whole reason versus passion thing that we see in All for Love. Professor Kuin went to great lengths to explain and demonstrate how at each turn of the play you can see the dynamic of Reason, Duty, Virtue pitted against Love, Passion, Desire. Rome versus Egypt. But I’m not really sure where to go with it all.

Haven’t we all been there? Isn’t Virtue and Vice common knowledge to us all even though we may not care to elaborate. Personally I have no direct comment from experience that I would care to provide. But the drama still tugs at something within all of us. It is a challenge that still exists and still must be navigated by us all. I’d love to make it simple by talking about some food related issue or comparing Duty and Desire to cleaning my room, but how do those banal everyday things even get close to the conflict?

Its something that makes one angry and glad confused and composed, focused and mad. I think that the more we try to make sense of this constant pull between the two opposing sphere’s or the more that we try to give some sort of logical ordering principle to it all, the more the damn thing seems to evade and consume us. The trivialities of life, the things that won’t really make a difference to who we are in the eyes of the world could never serve to enlighten so profound a contrast.

Every once in a while something comes along which calls into question our notions of what the right course of action is. My line in situations like that is that ‘I just can’t see the solution’, especially when both things seem to be just a wrong as each other. Whom do you betray your heart or your head? Which is less significant?

Antony places the heart above his head and we see the same for Cleopatra in act three. In that sense I can see how the both are well suited for each other. But usually when you see a person making a decision, your understanding of their action is also based on a good knowledge of their character. I’m not sure that I get a deep enough sense of just who Cleopatra and Antony are in this play to justify their actions.

Their love is supposed to be one that is deep and ever lasting but the fact that they have been in love for ten years is a mere footnote in the whole play. This can’t serve well to better understand the dynamic between Antony and Cleopatra. Their decision to stay together, to choose love is one that needs a deeper treatment in order to gain the right sympathy from myself.

In having a deeper understanding of the character the action can be better understood.