George Marlay Spencer

Plays at Yishun

            Yishun Junior College performed two plays on the Cleopatra theme. Firstly, my adapted version of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra which preserves Iras and Enobarbus as commentators on the action. This was partly to make the play more intelligible to its audience and partly to provide connecting scenelets to compensate for cutting out many of Shakespeare’s smaller scenes during the battle of Actium and when Enobarbus exhibits remorse over deserting Antony as well as the entire Thidias episode. Even so, the performance was three hours long including a twenty minute interval. Two songs were sung live, Shakespeare’s Come, Thou Monarch of the Vine, which was given two more verses on a carpe diem theme, and a lament with original lyrics sung as Cleopatra prepares to die. Battles were conveyed by the projection of a succession of military or naval pictures with appropriate music and likewise Enobarbus’s description of Cleopatra’s arrival at Cydnus.

            They Bless Her When She’s Frisky, part comedy, part political satire, was a prequel to Antony and Cleopatra concerned with Cleopatra’s romance with Julius Caesar, his assassination and subsequent events and Cleopatra’s meeting with Antony at Cydnus. The play contained two anthems, Roman and Egyptian, both with original lyrics and sung live. The plays required large casts of up to fifty major and minor characters presented in approximately modern dress. The various Roman factions were given colours so that Antony and his followers were dressed in red military jackets and Caesar, Octavius and their followers in white with Brutus and Cassius in black. When Enobarbus changes sides in Antony and Cleopatra his jacket changes accordingly. Egyptians were acted by females, Romans (with one or two necessary exceptions) by males. The dim-witted mob in Frisky was also acted mainly by girls.

            Kinahasa was originally presented as a one scene playlet for a youth drama festival. It was entitled Minahasa and is set in Sulawesi when it was part of the old Dutch East Indies. The writing on the boards is in Minahasan, a language of north Sulawesi. Since the play (and its later extended version) is a fable I changed the title and setting to Kinahasa which is entirely fictional. The crest is something like the real Minahasan one with an additional snake denoting sinister subversion and treachery.

LYRICS OF CLEOPATRA SONGS

Ticket handout for Frisky		Frisky - Hot & Cold, Cleopatra and Octavia Frisky - Antony and Cleopatra at Cydnus
Frisky - Anthony and Cleopetra as the goddess Isis		Frisky - Antony meets Cleopatra crowned as the goddess Isis
Frisky - Antony meets Cleopatra crowned as the goddess Isis		Frisky - Full Cast
Antony & Cleopatra -  Iras and Enobarbus
Antony & Cleopatra -  Sanctimonious Caesar
Antony & Cleopatra -  Roman Orgy
Antony & Cleopatra -  Cleopatra roughs up a messenger		Antony & Cleopatra -  Cleopatra roughs up messenger more thoroughly
Antony & Cleopatra -  Cleopatra's suicide		Antony & Cleopatra - Set Design. The goddess Isis flanked by the Roman capitoline wolf and the Egyptian sphinx Antony & Cleopatra -  Poster
Antony & Cleopatra -  Iras and Enobarbus were utilized to comment on the action of the play		Antony & Cleopatra -  Iras and Enobarbus provided a comic element as well
Antony & Cleopatra -  The play was presented in approximately modern dress
Kinahasa – Crest and Cast. The province’s name was subsequently changed from real-life Minahasa to Kinahasa		Kinahasa - Cast alone
Kinahasa - Injunction		Kinahasa – Injunction in Minahasan

 

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