"CLEOPATRA."

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 32, 7 February 1935, Page 7

"CLEOPATRA."

Coming to St. James Theatre,

' What a /strangely-fantastic drama the end of Cleopatra provides! ? Too near, perhaps, for the Romans to see it in its tragic grandeur, it had to wait until Shakespeare, fifteen centuries later, made it.', immortal. At least ten dramatists have since utilised it for a theme, a,9 well as many historians and. countless poets. As a human being Cleopatra is still a. mystery. What she really was_in appearance we can yet only imagine. No Greek sculpture depicting this queen Has been preserved, nor any drawing from theso times. On the walls of the dusty temple of Dendara is a curious profile said to be hers, and on some bronze medals dug up in Sicily is an effigy thought to be her portrait. In a London museum is a bust, of inferior workmanship, labelled "Cleopatra." But these relics give no hint of the witchery, fire, daring, passion,' and beauty fused in "The Serpent of Old Nile." One of the largest collections .of .Cleopatra, material in the world has been made by Cecil B. De Mille, director of the Paramount picture "Cleopatra." The material contains roughly a thousand pictures of the colourful Egyptian Queen, in addition to paintings, sketches, etchings, statuettes, coins, and medals "They a" agree on one thing," says De Millo. 'lhey agree in being different. There are aa many Cleopatras as there are authors and poets, but they all agree*'that she was beautiful." The difficulty in choosing an actress to depict her on the screerj is obvious, but in Claudette Colbert, Da Mille. is confident that he has found a composite of all these models. "Cleopatra" comes to the St. James Theatre next week.