Word: casca
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...think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where I stood, cried 'Alas, good soul!' and forgave him with all their hearts; but there's no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less." Casca in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar...
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...
...title role--where Shakespeare was not playing quite fair--Josef Sommer is too hollow and guttural; and he refers to Metellus Cimber as "Cimba" and turns "star" into "stah." Patrick Hines is a slimy Casca, who, when Antony comes to shake hands with the conspirators after the assassination, is still wary enough to extend his left hand and keep his dagger gripped in his right...
...minor roles, Edmond O'Brien is particularly convincing as Casca, infusing his lines with a natural fluency, while Deborah Kerr (Portia) and Greer Garson (Calpurnia) make the most of what are essentially bit parts...
...gives the part of Cassius, leader of the conspirators, his meticulous diction, classic profile, and a lean and hungry look. Less traditional in their delivery are Louis Calhern, as a rather tired-looking Caesar, and Edmond O'Brien, in a departure from his usual cops & robbers roles, as Casca, the conspiracy's hatchet man. In the vital role of Brutus, James Mason gives an intense, brooding performance that effectively combines the poetic and the prosaic. Greer Garson and Deborah Kerr, as Caesar's wife Calpurnia and Brutus's wife Portia, are decoratively patrician, but have little...