MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami/AP) — If you are a fan of Shakespeare or just enjoy going to a good play, “Antony and Cleopatra” has made its way to Miami Beach.
It’s the bard’s play as you know it with a twist.
The Shakespeare play is a tragedy that brings love and war together. However, director Tarell Alvin McCraney chose to shake things up a little and set the play in 18th century Haiti on the eve of what would become the most successful slave revolt in history.
McCraney said that he chose the setting of the play at a time when Haiti was still a French colony to amplify the tension between Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s legendary romance and the historical power plays that tore them apart.
While still employing Shakespeare’s dialogue, McCraney cast Antony as a French general and Cleopatra as a commanding Haitian queen.
“Antony and Cleopatra” is a trans-Atlantic collaboration of the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, Miami’s GableStage and The Public Theater in New York.
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