Word: caesarism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Caesar and Cleopatra (by George Bernard Shaw; produced by Richard Aldrich & Richard Myers in association with Julius Fleischmann) remains after half a century one of Shaw's, and hence the modern theater's, most vigorous plays. Shaw has often been more amusing, and sometimes more electrifying or profound. But in Caesar, using comedy with little flippancy, he achieved sharp comment; and with history for a pedestal, he set something Roman and solid upon...
...play shows a middle-aged Julius Caesar championing a young Cleopatra against her brother in a squabble over the Egyptian throne, and barely winning out by force of arms. But what most playwrights would turn into gaudy love feasts and drum & trumpet heroics is a chance for Shaw to explore the ancient world, contrast youth with age, servant with master, Egypt with Rome, Caesar with Caesarism...
Sixteen-year-old Cleopatra runs through the play like quicksilver-a kitten all cuddle and claws, still worlds away from Shakespeare's Serpent of Old Nile. Caesar, finding her a petulant child, leaves her a queen and woman, with a new authority and cruelty. But it is Caesar who really dominates the stage: a Caesar who is neither the image on a Roman coin nor the stern voice of the Roman Capitol, but a great and contradictory man molded into a peculiarly Shavian hero. Shaw's Caesar is much more the clement conqueror than the model for dictators...
...joker in Shaw breaks out sufficiently in Caesar and Cleopatra, e.g., his burlesqued esthete (well played by John Buckmaster) and frightfully proper Early Briton (well played by Arthur Treacher). But the tone of the play is prevailingly wry and ironic. The air seems very chill at times for all the Mediterranean sunlight. A bald and aging conqueror withholds his heart from a violent young girl rather than have her torture it; then, with a rueful smile, promises to send her a dashing young Marc Antony. "Murder shall breed murder . . ." he laments, "until the gods are tired of blood and create...
...production (Broadway's first since 1925) is satisfying without being brilliant. It offers a properly tightened version, enhanced by Rolf Gerard's impressive, simple sets. Sir Cedric Hardwicke (plagued by laryngitis on opening night) plays his role with a slow gravity better suited to Caesar than to Shaw, but still with real authority and understanding. European-born Lilli Palmer suits both Cleopatra and Shaw. She is as kittenish as Shaw's Cleopatras always are, as physically alluring as they always should...