She goes from fearless leader to lead actress

For 30 years Tina Packer has ruled over Shakespeare & Company, leading the company through real estate battles, artistic triumphs, and financial uncertainties. As she takes on the role of Cleopatra, she says she understands the kind of decisions the Egyptian queen made to preserve and protect her own people.

"I had to be obsessed with the company to keep it going," says Packer, who just began performances of "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Founders Theatre in Lenox. "And because I'm a woman I approach problems differently than a man."

It's an issue she says she described in "Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management" (Simon & Schuster, 2000), the book she coauthored with business executive John O. Whitney that used examples from Shakespeare and found parallels in the contemporary business world.

"Of course you use your sexuality to get your way in the world, whether you're the head of Toys R Us or Martha Stewart," Packer explains. "What makes Cleopatra so interesting to play is that after being in control for so long, at this point in her life it's difficult for her to be at the mercy of her feelings and emotions."

Shakespeare's story catches up with Cleopatra when she's at the height of her political power. Her relationship with the Roman ruler Caesar has stabilized her position, but the arrival of Mark Antony, the new Roman envoy, and the aspirations of the newest Roman ruler, Octavius Caesar, threaten her status. When she and Antony fall in love, they discover their relationship will cost them their political power, and ultimately their lives.

Although the movies have turned Cleopatra into a sexy siren on the order of Elizabeth Taylor, Packer says looking glamorous was not something she thought about when she took on the role.

"We began working on the play last fall, when we were asked to do something with nine young composers from Tanglewood," she says. "The emphasis was on the music, not the performance, but I felt like I'd just scratched the surface. With Nigel [Gore, who plays Antony], I'd found someone I really wanted to work with, and the chemistry was right."

Packer says she became fascinated with Shakespeare's insight into a woman who, she says, has already lived a whole life. "Cleopatra took over the kingdom at a young age, and she took lovers for political reasons, but only later was she able to fall in love. She says she's 'wrinkled deep in time,' " Packer says, adding, "But how did Shakespeare know that the middle-age woman is more passionate?"

Packer says she understands a character whose experience has finally allowed her to relax and enjoy her own life. "For years, I was too obsessed with holding this company together to be able to let go and look inward. Doing 'Hamlet' was an illumination for me," she says of her performance as Gertrude last summer. "I'd performed in contemporary plays, but it was the first time I'd gotten back up onstage with Shakespeare in 30 years. It wasn't something I felt I could allow myself to do before."

Although Cleopatra is a dominant character, Gore says Antony holds his own, and often calls her on her theatrics. "Antony says he loves Cleopatra in the autumn of her life," he says. "He seems to understand her, and loves her exactly as she is, but because of the force of their personalities, they have these wild fights. Still, they are both generous with their resources and their love, Antony to his men, Cleopatra to her people. When they come together, it's that passion that breathes between them."

For Packer, Cleopatra's effort to find some balance in her life is inspiring her. "She was ruling the kingdom at the same time she was passionate about Mark Antony," she says. "I'm trying to follow my bliss on stage and then have a meeting with my board chairman." It's not something she could attempt, she says, without three decades of experience.

With a capital campaign underway and a new performing arts center in the planning stage, Packer says she's not going anywhere, and her priority at Shakespeare & Company is to "institutionalize the institution, to ensure that it will be here after I'm gone."

Packer still has her dream of building a replica of the Rose Theatre, Shakespeare's first performance home, on Shakespeare & Company's property in Lenox, and she has no intention of going anywhere before that happens. The raising of a historically accurate replica of the 1587 theater has captured the imagination of archeologists, historians, architects, and scholars, many of whom worked on the replica of the Globe Theater recreated in London.

But creating a structure using historically accurate designs, tools, and timber has its complications, Packer says.

"Once we start building the Rose, we can't stop," she says. "It's a huge event in the historic timber framing community, and everyone is committed to making it historically accurate. The building of it will be filmed, and I need to have the tools and infrastructure in place to be ready to go. This capital campaign puts the Rose within my practical sight, and that will probably be the final effort that I work on with the company."