Julius Caesar

[sister_luck]

On Friday I was offered a spare ticket to the theatre - someone's misfortune, a broken leg that prevented him from attending the performance, meant that on Sunday night I sat inside the Neuss Globe and got to see some live Shakespeare.

There's just no substitute for seeing a play on stage.

I don't feel qualified to write a full review. Let's just say that there were things about the production that I liked and other aspects that fell slightly flat for me.

Comments

[gillo]

There's just no substitute for seeing a play on stage.

So very true. Film and TV are media in their own right, but the sheer buzz you get from being part of a live audience cannot be beaten.

I'd love to know more about what you liked and disliked - you don't need "qualifications" to say what you feel!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I liked the minimal set which was basically the bare black stage. The Globe in Neuss keeps saying it's a copy of the original Globe (with the exception of seats where the groundlings would have stood). They didn't have many props either and the costumes were simple, too - long red army-style coats for the senate scenes and then later greyish army coats and helmets. There were two huge flags to represent the armies in the fight scene and whenever there were soldiers around they used round aluminium shields and banged them like drums. There wasn't any music. You can see some productions photos here (http://www.shakespeare-festival.de/de/presse/bilder/272/Aquila-Theatre-Julius-Caesar/), but they're a bit misleading because in Neuss they didn't have the background Roman images.

There are only eight actors in the company. I don't know the play well enough to tell you which parts or scenes were cut, but they obviously combined a couple of characters to make it work and most actors had several roles.

My main gripe was with the acting and this is why I'm so reluctant to review - all of the actors were good and I especially liked Kenn Sabberton as Cassius and Natasha Piletich as Octavian and in a short but effective scene as Portia.

I had some problems with Brutus - I thought that his body movement was a bit too deliberate at times - the 'acting' was too obvious as in "Now I'm going to clutch my stomach to show that I'm still a bit reluctant" etc. His acting style might be better suited to a big house and not the Neuss Globe which is really intimate - I read somewhere that the biggest distance between spectators and stage is 15m.

The way Marc Anthony's big speech was staged was very effective - the cleverness of his approach came out really well, but I would have liked some more charisma from the actor. His speech was clever, but he wasn't a leader. Maybe this was deliberate? I don't know.

That's all for now but you can ask me specific questions and I'll try to answer. I'm not sure how clear my answers will be though because I find myself struggling to explain the different aspects of the production.