Brussels Shakespeare Society spotlights contemporary issues by staging Antony and Cleopatra in dystopian near-future

The Brussels Shakespeare Society (BSS), presents Antony and Cleopatra at the Jacques Franck cultural centre in Saint-Gilles, from 19 to 23 May.

This new production is showing alongside Othello Night as part of a semi-annual Shakespeare festival staged by the society, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025.

In the line of recent BSS shows, this interpretation of Antony and Cleopatra sets the Bard’s classic text in a dystopian near-future, linking literature and history to current-day threats.

Director Patrick Stephenson deliberately highlights the role of communication and manipulation in tracing a tyrant's rise to power. Rome becomes a Brussels that has fallen under the sway of a populist, autocratic regime, where social media are used to stir a fear and hate campaign against foreign Egypt.

This latest production follows the political and military struggle between Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, known in the play as Octavian, and Marcus Antonius, known as Mark Antony. Audiences last saw the pair as triumphant co-victors against Brutus and Cassius in the BSS’ 2025 production of Julius Caesar. 

Now, after Antony and the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, fall in love, Octavian presents Antony to the Brussels bubble – known as ‘new Rome’ – as betraying traditional values and becoming a puppet in the hands of his lover. When Octavian’s smear campaign takes root, he compels the Senate (here, the European Parliament) to declare war against Cleopatra. 

Says Stephenson: “The thesis of this production is that disinformation, in particular disinformation demonising perceived outsiders, is the road that leads from populism to autocracy.”

This premise builds on the historical propaganda campaign waged by Octavian against Mark Antony. For Sander van der Linden, disinformation expert and professor at the University of Cambridge, it is “a highly influential (and one of the oldest) disinformation campaigns on record.”

Antony and Cleopatra is performed mostly in English, with some passages in other languages. Surtitles are mainly in French and Dutch.

The festival also features Othello Night, a dynamic double bill offering a fresh perspective on one of Shakespeare’s darkest tragedies, from 21 to 23 May.

Opening the evening is Green-Eyed Monster, an imagined and entirely fictional prequel to Othello, written and directed by Fintan O’Higgins, winner of the BSS playwriting competition. The piece explores the origins of jealousy and manipulation before the events of Shakespeare’s tragedy unfold.

This is followed by an abridged four-hander adaptation of Othello, directed by Hugh Dow, which condenses the drama into a fast-paced and intimate retelling.

Running at approximately 45 minutes each, the two productions offer a compact but striking exploration of jealousy, deception and downfall through both new writing and Shakespearean adaptation.

Antony and Cleopatra
19 to 23 May

Othello Night
21 to 23 May

Jacques Franck cultural centre
Chaussée de Waterloo 94
Saint-Gilles