Word: caesonia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...They gave up one of the best possibilities of the play, that of delighting the eye with a great Roman spectacle, by giving it in modern dress. Weli, not quite modern dress. Men wore tuxedoes and lit their cigarettes with Zippo lighters, careful not to burn their Edwardian sideburns. Caesonia (Caligula's mistress) appeared in several very Roman costumes, one modern evening gown, and one outfit that would not have been out of place in the chorus line of the Copacabana. Asa Gates designed those costumes which were not rented from a tuxedo agency. There is no set designer listed...
...actors, from Caligula's clean-cut ROTC army to Scipio (a sweet young poet who wears a turtle neck sweater and an Italian zoot-suit), were mild, unprepossessing, and without talent. But from the gray haze of the production emerge the performances of Lynn Milgrim and David Gullette as Caesonia and Caligula. Miss Milgrim's asset is her presence, her ability to command the stage. She is a marble statue on a stage of mannequins...
...created by Caligula's slowly developing insanity. This production convinces us that Caligula's decision to feign madness is rationally made, and that the insanity becomes real as he finds only a flimsy and cowardly opposition to his craving after power. Gullette's final frenzied soliloquy after strangling Caesonia, in which he decides that absolute power brings absolute loneliness, that he has been wrong, is as moving as an actor can make it. Somewhere behind the rough edges of Gullete's performance there lurks a diamond...