SOURCE: Macaulay, Alastair. “A Stunning Queen, But Where Is the Chemistry?” Financial Times (25 April 2002): 18.

In the following excerpt, Macaulay reviews Michael Attenborough's 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Antony and Cleopatra. The critic has high praise for Sinead Cusack's representation of Cleopatra, noting the freshness of her delivery, her devotion to the language of the play, and the variations in her tone and demeanor.

Sinead Cusack is surely the most beautiful woman I've seen playing Shakespeare's Cleopatra, and her speaking of the lines—though here the competition is yet stiffer—may well be the most beautiful I've heard. In truth, I can't quite believe in her as the Egyptian queen—in voice and looks she is, even with dark wig and glamorous raiment, so very Celtic—but she's so intelligent and skilful an actress that it's impressive how often I suspend disbelief. Shakespeare, indeed the Royal Shakespeare Company, used...