The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 26.201  Wednesday, 22 April 2015

 

From:        Jay Quantrill <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         April 20, 2015 at 11:26:12 PM EDT

Subject:    Review of Julius Caesar at A Noise Within

 

Shakespeare in Performance

the production, Julius Caesar

the company, A Noise Within.

 

by Jay Alan Quantrill

 

Assuming no need to provide a synopsis of the play to the readership of SHAKSPER, let me begin by heartily recommending the current fully-charged production of the play now in rep (through May 24, 2015) at A Noise Within, the metropolitan Los Angeles-based (Pasadena area) classical theater company. Rarely has this organization – devoted entirely to the classics, however one may define the term - produced as engaging an evening of theater. For those not familiar with A Noise Within, they present a repertory schedule of three plays in each of two halves of their six-play Sept-May season, generally one Shakespeare in each segment. Not too long ago they built and moved into the comfortable intimacy of a well-equipped and generously apportioned 283-seat thrust stage theater. Among their many shows, I have seen a somewhat tedious Cymbeline, an overly rambunctious Taming of the Shrew (set in a farcical Italian 20th Century Padua as if populated by Sicilian mobsters), and a gripping Hamlet in which the ghost of his remembered father was presented as Hamlet’s own reflection, in mirrors and windows – a conceit that didn’t work, but didn’t mar the emotionally-charged production. 

 

After attending their current offering of Julius Caesar, I find myself most intrigued by two issues: (1) how well does the company serve the play, and (2) how well can the circa 1599 script, in the hands of a professional company, serve a 21st Century audience. The answer to both questions, is an exemplary ‘Bravo! Very Well Indeed!’ While it may be a somewhat uneven production, with great highs and a catalogue of thankfully minor if numerous lows, the overall energy and clarity of the effort admirably and enjoyably brings immediacy to the action and a deep understanding of the major characters’ intentions. So much so that, at the performance I attended, most of the audience was swept into Shakespeare’s tale and held in its thrall as much by the performances as by its uncannily contemporary tone established by co directors Geof Elliott and Julia Rodrigez-Elliott (Co-Artistic Directors of the company).

 

The hallmarks of this production being energy, drive, and passionate treachery, it opens with such a detailed and engrossing portrayal of Cassius by England-trained actor Freddy Douglas, that the plot, its raison d’etre, and the noble villain needed to put it in motion, grabs our attention and quickly prepares us for Shakespeare‘s engrossing political journey. Indeed, this character so dominates the first scenes as to make one think this should be Cassius’ tragedy, especially in contrast to a surprisingly uninvolved (except in the tent scene) Brutus.  Playing the role, Robertson Dean brings to Brutus the physical and vocal stature needed to embody the noblest Roman of them all, but not the inner conflict of a man being goaded into committing the bloody treachery already bubbling in his heart. Dean seems to be so comfortable with the lines that his much vaunted nobility and honor are but pale tints in a performance at once too facile and overly familiar for an aristocrat carrying the weight of Rome’s ancient honor on his patrician shoulders. Caesar, in the hands of Patrick O’Connell, also has the stature for his character, but alas not the power, the internal power that is the sine qua non of a commanding general of such popularity and repute as to rule over a proud nation and to threaten it’s existence at the same time (in spite of and hiding a physical weakness). 

 

And then there is Marc Antony, here played at times with brilliance, at times with mere intelligence, by Rafael Goldstein. Looking back over the production, it seems that Goldstein’s Antony could be mistaken for a one-trick pony – ah, but what a clever and passionate animal! His entrance into the bloody scene of Caesar’s death is emotionally moving in its simplicity and conviction. Unfortunately, in what appears to be a directorial choice throughout the play (to make personal asides into public declarations), Antony’s private moment of revenge-promised, spoken over the still bleeding body of his beloved leader, becomes a flailing speech that could not fail but to alert Brutus that Cassius has been correct all along – Antony is a threat and must needs be eliminated.  But thankfully for us, he isn’t.  For Antony’s funeral oration is line by line, so well considered, so cleanly spoken, so immediately discovered in the moment, that this “Friends, Romans, Countrymen,” is a play in itself, performed with the ups and downs of a telescoping Genie lift and almost worth the price of admission on its own. Would that the directors had given Antony more prominence on the stage, carefully building a stronger more forceful relationship with Caesar.  Even without Shakespeare providing additional dialogue, how much more we would have felt the conflict, for what a quartet of clashing characters – Cassius, Brutus, Caesar, Antony – Shakespeare has bequeathed us.

 

With the exception of one (and she unintended), the women of the play fair less well, though Jill Hill’s Portia rises out of her wheel chair and into our consciousness with sufficient vulnerability as to provide Brutus with a credible love interest. Alison Elliott’s Calpurnia is allowed no more presence than as a young “bit of stuff” one would expect to see on the arm of a power-hungry dictator rather the omen-awed advisor and trusted power-behind-the-throne helpmate of a great man. The one exception – at least in this reading, is performed by Deborah Strang, an actress who is never less than engaging. For this production, Ms. Strang is non-traditionally cast as Casca, and surprisingly effective she is in this role written for the male of the species. Her realization of Casca is an itchingly alive portrayal of a worry wart conspirator born to plague bolder men with incessant reconsideration of whatever game they have set afoot.

 

Octavius, Flavius, Cicero, Lepidus, Murellus, Decius – they all do their bits, but are never given the opportunity to stand out, though the actors playing Octavius (Joe Sofranko) and Decius (Eric Curtis Johnson, who also reads Flavius and Lepidus) make memorable impressions. Cinna, the poet, however, takes center stage in his here-strangely-directed scene for which Shakespeare seems to be dramatizing the effects of Antony’s oration on the mob. But it is separated from the oration by an act break, opening the second half of the evening on it own, it comes off as a ‘what was that all about!’ intrusion, however visually arresting the mob action is staged.

 

And visually arresting this production often is. Played in Brechtian mode, on a bare stage with wheeled scaffolds variously draped with tent flaps, or curtains, or construction site plastic, the directors and designers have achieved with settings (Frederica Nascimento) and costumes (Angela Balogh Calin) a look at once historical and contemporary – further enhancing the accessibility of the script to a 21st century audience: a blood-spawn backdrop here, a graffiti-pocked canvas or mirrored wall, all moving with speed and assurance to refresh the eye and suggest the mood. That the frequent if rapid movement of the sets, accompanied by overly loud musical interludes (Robert Oriol) does, sadly, break the on-going thrust of the action, as if commercials for the design crew were required, the scene-change intervals do at least sustain the energy of the production.

 

Everyone wears a full ankle-length robe, billowing with every turn, of dark and consistently somber hues over varying vests, blouses, and bits of clothing, some characters with skull caps, others with top hats, some smoking cigarettes or cigars, but all moving with sweeping panache. Everyone, that is, except Portia, frail in her pastel apparel that bespeaks her sickly neediness. The lighting (Ken Booth) is less precise than I think would have better served the play, whether a designer or director choice who knows, but it is appreciably more than attentive.

 

This Julius Caesar is decidedly not a museum piece, but a vivid two-hour reverberation of power politics eternal, and quibbles aside, a refreshing reminder of Shakespeare’s love of effective over orderly drama. 

 

Subscribe to Our Feeds

Search

Make a Gift to SHAKSPER

Consider making a gift to support SHAKSPER.