Word: caesarism
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...version of Julius Caesar staged during the current season on Broadway under the direction of 22-year-old Orson Welles, is noted for (1 the acting of Walter Hampden, 2 the faithful reproduction of Shakespearian costumes, 3 the fact that Julius Caesar is presented to New York audiences for the first time in ten years, 4 modern, up-to-date dress and interpretation, 5 its accurate use of Shakespearian English...
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in the hands of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre, has been stripped of its superstitious characters and less significant scenes, act on a huge bare stage with several platforms and an immense vertical rectangle, and had its antique continues changed for grim modern civilian suits and Fascist uniforms. Thereby after the first few moments of apparent incongruity have passed, it is a stark, harrowing picture of mob passion and dictatorship...
...potent climax. The terror of the situation and the violence of the passions released by the demagogue are starkly symbolized by the casting of a gigantic shadow of the orator high up on the white brick wall in back. The events of the civil war following the assassination of Caesar are barely touched upon, and Caesar's ghost does not appear at all. Brutus dies almost immediately after Cassias. The play ends suddenly with its apology for its conscientious here, Brutus, and with one's impression of the murder and the tide-turning speech still vividly in mind...
...Caesar himself has been transformed from Mussolini into Hitler, complete with hair hanging in his face and nervous uneasiness. Possibly the reason for preferring the Teuton to the Latin is that in the play so much is made of the dictator's bodily infirmities, all of which applies much better to Der Fuhrer than to the robust Italian. Lawrence Fietcher in the title role does his relatively small job with all the proper arrogance...
...Shoemakers' Holiday (by Thomas Dekker; produced by the Mercury Theatre). With his modern-dress Julius Caesar still playing to capacity audiences in its eighth week, last week Actor-Producer Orson Welles turned again to the gusty Elizabethans. Bawdier than three burlesque shows, but too disarmingly frank and deftly acted to be offensive, The Shoemakers' Holiday struck Broadway like a brisk wind. Good Queen Bess, never a prude, must have liked it too, and roared like a sailor...