ABSTRACT
If I were an actress—heaven forbid—I would avoid playing Cleopatra. In her bewildering, magnificent entirety, she’s virtually unplayable. In her “infinite variety,” Cleopatra is too much—and too much for mere mortals. I’ve long been convinced, however, that Vanessa Redgrave was born on another planet. Her God-given talent isn’t of this world. There’s no one like her, no one quite so glorious and so gloriously unhinged. Now sixty, beautiful and at the peak of her powers, she is a near-mythic actress playing a myth.
