In this performance, Antony is burdensome mental dissention caught between two abysses, between Egypt and Rome, between Cleopatra and Octavius Caesar. These three are bound by complicated relations of attraction and repulsion, love and hatred, friendship and enmity. And since they all hold destinies of peoples and the world in their hands, the outcome of the battle obtains historical importance – will the spicy, pampered East or Rome with its expansionist ardor or Antony with his quest for good and justice prevail? M. Ulyanov — Antony is this role is natural, healthy, single-minded. He loves his Cleopatra not only sensually, but also nobly and reverently. Ulyanov portrayed Antony as a Russian actor who is close to the folk nature of the image. Yu. Borisova selects the toughest rendering of her Cleopatra, she forgives her neither female selfishness, nor tactic love, nor cupboard love, nor her need to continuously establish her authority over her beloved, nor deafness to anxieties of the world. Her character pursues her ambition with rage and obsession. And it’s only after she loses Antony that her Cleopatra loses her image of an eastern whimmy and becomes, in a simple grief “like that of thousands of women” worthy of her love. This performance of vakhtangists is a bright page of our theatrical Shakespeariana.