Word: caesar
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...most powerful and feared bosses. Killed with him were a bodyguard, Leonardo Coppola, 40, and Turano, reputedly an adviser to Galante's crime family. The restaurant owner's son John, 17, was wounded. The execution had been carefully set up in advance. While the gunmen blazed away, Caesar Bonventra, 28, a Galante recruit who a Mafia insider said had set up his boss for the slaying, stood quietly by. Then he walked calmly out of the restaurant and disappeared...
...murder of Caesar is effectively staged indeed. There is no sense of haste; the assassins do their work with plenty of time between knife-stabs. And they carefully roll up their shirt sleeves before going through the ritual of bathing their hands in Caesar's blood, and then--in slow succession again--shaking hands with Mark Antony. (This was a wonderful idea on the author's part, and is not found in the three Plutarch biographies that provided most of Shakespeare's material. The Bard may have taken a hint from Plutarch's sketch of Publicola, which contains a reference...
Haigh makes the most of Brutus' abstraction-ridden speech. As everyone knows, Antony's demagogy must top this, after Caesar's body is brought out in a closed casket with his bloody military jacket on it instead of a flag. Luckily, James, Naughton is blessed with a rich baritone voice. If he cannot match Brando's electrifying performance in the 1953 film, he is still hugely impressive, shrewdly guaging his manner against the scattered reactions of the crowd and choosing the right moment to throw open the mirror-lidded casket...
Still, this is a daring show that sustains interest unflaggingly throughout its running-time of two-and-a-half hours. The greatcritic James Agate once wrote of Julius Caesar: "The play's second half is one long anti-climax. Shakespeare left his play in two halves which no company of actors, however skillful can succeed in putting together." Were he alive and here, I think Agate would change his mind...
Playing in repertory with Julius Caesar (and shortly to be joined by The Tempest) is a revival of the production of Twelfth Night, set in the 18th century, that Freedman directed here last season, and about which I wrote at some length in these pages (July...