Word: caesar
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...SLOW-MOTION, as currently played, is not led up to very well, but the idea itself is stunning. This solution has the added virtue of heightening the contrast between the rationalized assassination of Caesar and the ensuing irrational mob-lynching of Cinna the poet for the crime of having the same name as one of the conspirators. The latter--one of stage literature's most horrible acts, from which mankind has yet to learn--is carried out fast and brutally: not only is the innocent Cinna stabbed, but his eyes are also gouged out with sticks, while the stage...
Although entitled Julius Caesar, the play is not about Caesar but about Caesarism. Caesar himself appears in only three of the eighteen scenes (plus a brief apparition as a ghost). Bernard Kates plays him as a forceful man who seems much younger than his 55 years. It is hard to reconcile this Caesar with the one who, Cassius tells us, ran out of steam while swimming in the Tiber. Although Caesar has recently returned from military victories. I prefer a Caesar who is slightly over the hill, who is clearly showing signs of weakness (like the deal left...
Paul Hecht looks right for the ardent, opportunistic Antony. But he does not yet fulfil the requirement that he also be the play's most effective orator. The moment when Antony first confronts Caesar's corpse and soliloquizes while hugging the body in his arms is the most moving in the production. But his handling of the famous funeral oration is disappointing. His timing here, and often elsewhere, is all off. He delivers "Lend me your ears" and "I come to bury Caesar" in a run-on manner that makes no sense whatever. He should study the fresh and definitive...
JOSEF SOMMER, who has usually specialized in portraying old men (and who played Caesar in the 1966 production), is now a properly lean and cynical Cassius. His wide vocal range and unfailingly intelligent line-readings add up to a first-rate performance. Joseph Maher's Casca will be almost equally good if he learns to say "part" and "market" instead of "paht" and "mahket...
...distaff side, Sharon Laughlin as Brutus's wife Portia is not wholly at case in her lines. Ruby Holbrook, as Caesar's wife Calpurnia, speaks better but hasn't the remotest idea of how to react when her husband decides to go to the Senate after all on the Ides of March...