{"id":202812,"date":"2026-03-03T22:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202812\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T22:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:02:07","slug":"raw-violent-infused-with-love-how-the-director-describes-long-beach-shakespeares-antony-and-cleopatra-eat-see-do-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202812\/","title":{"rendered":"Raw. Violent. Infused with love. How the director describes Long Beach Shakespeare\u2019s \u2018Antony and Cleopatra\u2019 \u2022 Eat. See. Do."},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Theater News, a regular column by longtime reviewer Anita W. Harris. Look for it most Thursdays. Or\u00a0sign up<\/a>\u00a0for our Eat. See. Do. newsletter to get it in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Long Beach Shakespeare Company is staging a new adaptation of William Shakespeare\u2019s tragic tale of love and politics, \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d \u2014 which director Christian Lee Navarro has pared down to what he calls its \u201craw, violent\u201d essence.<\/p>\n

The play centers on the heady romance between Mark Antony, one of three triumvirate leaders of ancient Rome after Julius Caesar\u2019s assassination, and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. The theater says the production heightens the \u201cvolatile intimacy between two titans \u2014 and the collateral damage of loving without restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dominic Ryan Gabriel, who plays Antony in this play as he did in the theater\u2019s recent production of \u201cJulius Caesar,\u201d says that while his character was \u201cfocused and untouchable\u201d in the previous play, Antony here is \u201ca powerful leader pulled apart by love, ego and identity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And Angelina Green as Cleopatra says her character is \u201cincandescent with intellect, longing and desire\u201d but also vulnerable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBeneath the political brilliance is a woman who feels deeply and risks everything,\u201d Green says. \u201cShe is sovereign, strategist and performer, yet at her core she is a lover. In choosing love, she gambles her kingdom, her legacy and even herself \u2014 unapologetic in her power in a world ruled by men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director Navarro not only streamlined \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d but is transforming Long Beach Shakespeare\u2019s intimate stage for the play, trying to make it more like a theater-in-the-round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve placed seats on the stage, on the playing space,\u201d Navarro said in an interview with the Long Beach Post. \u201cThe audience is another cast member. It\u2019s the only way I know how to do Shakespeare because I trained in England at Shakespeare\u2019s Globe with some of the best Shakespeareans on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro describes the Globe as a round theater with \u201cgroundling\u201d audience members literally within arm\u2019s reach of the actors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA soliloquy is not a soliloquy into the air,\u201d Navarro said he learned there. \u201cIt\u2019s to the audience. You\u2019re speaking with them, and you need something from them. Shakespeare certainly wrote his texts with all that in mind, because he was having them performed in the round. It was much more of a dialogue between audience and actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such interaction is like a \u201cknife\u201d that cuts through the \u201cfourth wall\u201d that normally divides them, he said, making the theatrical experience more immediate for both.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Navarro, a six-year Long Beach transplant who starred in Netflix\u2019s popular series \u201c13 Reasons Why,\u201d found his way to directing the play fortuitously. He had reached out to the theater wanting to perform as Antony in \u201cJulius Caesar,\u201d only to find out the role had been cast. But when the director of \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d backed out, he saw a chance to contribute to a theater right in his neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\"\"Christian Lee Navarro, director of Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s \u201cAntony and Cleopatra.\u201d Photo by Tom Cocking.<\/p>\n

Directing allows him to move people and have them see themselves on stage, Navarro said, like holding up a mirror to society. But when he first asked producer Holly Leveque if he could take out all the theater\u2019s seats for the production, he said she looked at him like he was crazy.<\/p>\n

So instead of having the audience stand like groundlings, the first two rows of seats will be on stage, Navarro said. He also cut the play so it can be performed with no intermission in order to sustain its energy and \u201ccurrent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro\u2019s innovative efforts are partly to attract younger people to the theater in today\u2019s TikTok era, he said, having noticed when he saw \u201cJulius Caesar\u201d that the theater\u2019s audience skewed older.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe eternal appeal of Shakespeare is that you can always bring Shakespeare to yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think we have to do that in theater. We have to adapt these classics so people who are 14, 15, 16 not only understand what\u2019s happening \u2014 because the actors have clarity and real sense of perspective \u2014 but also hold their attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for younger people to sit through a three-hour movie, Navarro said, let alone a three-hour play in a dark theater. Having grown up in the Bronx in New York, attending a performing-arts high school, he noticed in the early 2000s how theater started attracting younger and more diverse audiences with plays like \u201cWicked\u201d and Lin Manuel Miranda\u2019s \u201cIn the Heights\u201d and \u201cHamilton.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw these young theater practitioners \u2014 writers, directors \u2014 really speaking to and creating for themselves the demographic that they wanted to see come,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd those shows went on to become the most massively popular and successful shows in theater history. The formula is undeniable. If you write for people who are like you, who you want to see come, they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro said he\u2019s attempting to do that with his directing style, especially with Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the elements are already there,\u201d Navarro said of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. \u201cHe\u2019s a universal writer. So I can sift through and find the chords and hit that music so that people go, \u2018Oh, yeah, I understand that. I know Romeo and Juliet. I know why Antony and Cleopatra are willing to risk everything because they love each other.\u2019 That\u2019s a universal truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The love between Antony and Cleopatra is what young people know \u2014 how two people can become each other\u2019s whole world, Navarro said, to the point of disregarding duty, policy, empire and \u201ceverything that is not each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho among us hasn\u2019t fallen in love and thought, \u2018If all I could do was stare into this person\u2019s eyes, I would be happy\u2019?\u201d Navarro said. \u201cThat\u2019s a universal truth. He wrote it 400 years ago, but he was writing about these people who were alive about 1,500 years before him. It\u2019s accessible for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro said he noticed anew how compelling \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d is during a recent rehearsal.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single person in the show, every cast member, every character \u2014 they are all hanging on every word as if it\u2019s life or death,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause these two people hold the reins to two empires \u2014 Egypt and Rome \u2014 and if they decide to go left or right, it could very well mean the lives of these other characters.\u201d \u2029<\/p>\n

This production will be \u201craw, violent and infused with love,\u201d Navarro said of his directorial debut at the theater, adding hopefully, \u201cWe\u2019ll see if it matches my intent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d runs March 7 to 22 at the Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $30 or $20 for students. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-997-1494 or visit LBShakespeare.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Theater News, a regular column by longtime reviewer Anita W. Harris. Look for it most Thursdays.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-202812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}