Et Tu, TFANA?
Julius Caesar has become one of the most regularly revived of
Shakespeare’s plays locally in recent years, along with Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, A Winter’s Tale, and Twelfth
Night. Its reflection of contemporary political concerns has never been
sharper, a consideration that made Oskar Eustis’s 2017 Shakespeare
in the Park production, with Caesar a doppelganger for Donald Trump, nationally
notorious. |
| Citizens at the Feast of Lupercal. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
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| James Barbour, Rocco Sisto. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
Cooper provides a swift-moving, clearly spoken staging, with
the kind of directorial interpolations we’ve come to expect in Shakespeare revivals. For example, anxious to demonstrate the impact of
the play’s developments not only on men but on women, she supplements the
presence of Shakespeare’s female characters—Brutus’ wife Portia (Merritt Janson)
and Caesar’s wife Calphurnia (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart)—by casting actresses as
Cicero (Emily Dorsch), the Soothsayer (Michelle Hurst), and Artemidorous
(Juliana Sass), their gender undisguised.
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| Merritt Janson, Brandon J. Dirden. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
Her thrust-stage set, designed by Sybil Wickersheimer, is a
rather unattractive, ambiguous backdrop of tall, unadorned, white walls, partly
sheet rock and partly curtains, some of it crumbling, some of it marked by
cracks that show it verging on collapse. Parts of it will fall, loudly, perhaps
suggesting the downfall of the Roman state (which actually was far from that crisis).
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| Citizens of Rome. Photo: Gerry Goodstein. |
Whatever it’s meant to represent, it’s from an upper edge
that Brutus (Brandon J. Dirden), surrounded by masked plebeians, and with everyone’s
lower half hidden, delivers his grand oration at Caesar’s funeral. The effect,
I’m afraid, resembles a hand-puppet show.
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| Rocco Sisto, Brandon J. Dirden. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
And why, one wonders, is so much space occupied by stacks of
what look like fresh sheet-rock, some even providing brief bridgeways to outer
parts of the stage? There also are similarly vague, cloth-wrapped structures
whose presence distracts more than they attract.
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| Matthew Amendt (Cassius), Brandon J. Dirden. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
Raquel Barreto’s costumes are nearly as ambiguous, only a
few characters dressed in a way that clearly distinguishes the political
leaders from the plebs. Brutus even appears for a time in a t-shirt and hoody,
while slacks, shirts, and vests replace business suits for most.
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| Benjamin Bonenfant, James Barbour. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
The action being set during the mid-March Lupercal
festivities, the plebs get to carry on in masks and mop-like wigs. Given
the general updating,one can’t help thinking what it would have looked like to see
their drunken behavior tied to St. Patrick’s Day carousing. For the battles
that occupy the play’s second half, the actors dress in a loose assortment of
what could pass as found military garments, a camo shirt here, camo pants
there, and so on.
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| Matthew Amendt, Stephen Michael Spencer (Caska). Photo: Henry Grossman. |
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| Stephen Michael Spencer, Benjamin Bonenfant. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
A considerable amount of the last hour of this well-over
two-hour production therefore consists of dynamically choreographed combat
activity in which nearly the entire cast, holding daggers, does martial arts thrusts, twists, and kicks. Accompanying them is an excitingly rhythmic score
by Paul J. Prendergast, with Christopher Akerland’s dramatic lighting making a significant
contribution.
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| Company of Julius Caesar. Photo: Gerry Goodstein.. |
Sometimes they divide into rival factions, other times the
entire ensemble faces us as a single unit. Until most of them drop when shot
from somewhere out front, you can’t help but appreciate the cardio workout
everyone is getting. Which doesn’t answer the question as to where those sudden
bursts of artillery fire are coming from—I don’t recall seeing any guns—or why
these hapless combatants think all those fancy dagger thrusts are going to
overpower bullets.
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| Brandon J. Dirden, Rocco Sisto. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
Caesar’s assassination is bloody but not particularly novel
while the killing by the mob of the Poet Cinna (Galen Molk), whose name,
tragically, is the same as a conspirator, is theatrically interesting. The
killers lay out a large sheet of plastic, red liquid is poured on it, Cinna
lies down on the sheet, and the actors stomp loudly, each stomp symbolizing a
stab wound, as Cinna flails about and becomes increasingly covered in “blood.”
While it does offer visual interest, it’s also a moment that takes precedence
in one’s memory over more important parts of Shakespeare’s play.
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| Galen Molk. Photo: Gerry Goodstein. |
Overall, the acting is strong, with intense performances by
Dirden as Brutus and Barbour as Antony, each delivering their famous speeches
with passion and intelligence, although the nod goes to the latter. Partly
that’s because of his freedom to move around, while Brutus is confined to that
distant rooftop (?).
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| James Barbour, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Rocco Sisto. Photo: Gerry Goodstein. |
As with the entire cast, each speaks in as naturalistic,
non-rhetorical a fashion as possible, finding multiple meaningful transitions
and insights in their lines. Sisto is a smooth, self-confident Caesar, with a
touch of smarminess betraying how powerful he feels. Thankfully, he needn’t do
anything Trump-like for us to get the point.
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| Julian Remulla, Brandon J. Dirden. Photo: Henry Grossman. |
The Tragedy of Julius
Caesar once more demonstrates the eternal universality of Shakespeare’s
writing. The existence of dictatorial leaders (potential and actual) around the
world today offers sufficient reason for revivals of the play (it not
necessarily in such quick succession). So will it be true when these
leaders are no longer with us.
Polonsky Shakespeare Center/Theatre for a New Audience
262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY
Through April 28
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