Word: caesares
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STRATFORD, Conn.--I suppose almost everyone has been put through Julius Caesar as a high-school sophomore and been forced to commit some of its speeches to memory. For all its familiarity the play remains, like Beethoven's Fifth, a rattling good work; and no one should shrink from mounting it on that account...
...Julius Caesar was, in fact, the very first play to be offered when the American Shakespeare Festival began its operations eleven summers age. And it has not been restaged there until...
...Julius Caesar is a no-nonsense play. It gets right down to business and sticks to business. There is no sub-plot, no comic relief, not even any mildly humorous lines except for a handful of Casca's; and the play is freer of bawdry than any other save Richard II. Aside from a little compression of chronology, Shakespeare followed closely his three source biographies in Plutarch's Lives, often just turning its line of prose into verse...
John Cunningham's Duke is clear but tepid. Adolph Caesar brings a rich voice to the Priest, but his make-believe senility is false. Stephen Pearlman's Antonio exhibits acrocious diction and no comprehension. And how could the director allow him to pass right by Viola-Cesario when exiting in pursuit of the look-alike Sebastian without Antonio's batting an eye? The suspension of disbelief can stretch only...
...Note: Henry IV, Part Two will run in repertory with Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral through September 11. Reviews of the Festival's other three productions will appear in the next issues. The drive to the picturesque Stratford grounds by the Housatonic takes under three hours via the Massachusetts Turnpike, the Route 91 bypass and either Exit 53 from the Merritt Parkway or Exit 32 from the Connecticut Turnpike. Performances tend to begin promptly at the designated hour. There are free outdoor facilities for picnickers.) final scene, when Falstaff appears with a saffron...