30 May 2008

Great Caesar's Ghost!

Wednesday night Mike and I went to the Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of Julius Caesar.

Caesar is a Shakespeare play that I'd never seen or even read before. It was pretty good! The production wasn't that impressive. It was what I think of as traditional American-style Shakespeare, with guys all wrapped up in white sheets and leather sandals. And the fighting was bad -- it was like modern dance interpretive fighting.

But there was a stand-out performance by the actor playing Antony. He was fantastic. You don't think of Antony as the comic relief, but he injected some humor into the role while still maintaining himself as a serious military man. And I enjoyed the actual play. It's hard going into Shakespeare when you don't know the play, but this one really wrapped me up and kept me intrigued throughout the evening.

Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra are playing throughout the spring at Harman Center for the Arts Sidney Harman Hall. (The theatre is across the street from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop.) The Shakespeare Theatre Company's free Shakespeare in the Park production is Hamlet.

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