Word: caesonia
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There's Pompey's conservative sister, Electra publicans (Aaron R. Zelman '95), and her Yale-educated slave Lucinda Lipps (J.P. Anderson '95). (She's Yale-educated, and she's a slave Get it?) They scheme to get Electra's airheaded daughter, Caesonia Phase (Adam D. Feldman '95) interested in the would be successor to the Roman throne, nerdy Nero Sited (Thomas F. Giordano...
...much caricature, of course, can get a little tiresome. As Caesonia Phaze, Feldman does a good impression of the Delta Delta Delta girl from Saturday Night Live--but the Delta Delta Delta girl is pretty damned grating. and while consistency isn't the Pudding's strong suit, things ought to be out of place for a reason. When Plato talks like Joe Pesci, it works. But why several Roman characters have British accents is a mystery...
...emphasizing passion or philosophy mars the entire production--the performance ends up fuzzy, focusing on neither theme. This swinging back-and-forth results in passion when a delicate appreciation of the philosophical base of the play is more appropriate, or staunch underplaying when intensity is required. In one scene, Caesonia, Caligula's mistress (Sonia Martinez), tries to explain to Scipio (Matthew Horseman), a sensitive and innocent friend of the young Roman emperor, why Caligula had his father's tongue torn from his mouth and then slain for no apparent reason. In an attempt to make Scipio empathize with the personal...
...Caesonia asks not just Scipio, but the entire audience, to empathize with Caligula and to understand the magnitude of his misery--the torture that drives an individual to such sadism. But Martinez delivers the lines in a flip, spiteful tone--not at all imploringly or sensitively--and, as a result, another numeral of the combination to the play's thematic lock fails to click with the audience...
...suggesting the Frito Bandito loose in the Roman Empire. Sonia Martinez evokes the right amount of cruelty, sensuality, and vacuousness that you would expect from a woman who devotes her life to a man who kills for reasons she finds incomprehensible, although she misses the more serious sides of Caesonia's personality. The supporting players are the weakest link in this rusted chain, many indulging in stilted gestures and inflectionless readings...