Julius and Caesar

A few days after the Antony and Cleopatra reported in the last post, back to the Barbican to see Andrew Woodall do Julius Caesar, the only member of the team to get a serious outing on both days. The title being slightly altered in recognition of the big role for Caesar Augustus.

Lots of heavily illustrated tutorial material in the £5 programme. We are treated, for example, to a large picture of Obama and Trump in the Oval Office. Some of words are from that well-known media professor, Mary Beard. Useful background to the period of the writing of the play and the period of the action of the play - but not to the play itself. Perhaps I will get to read it this evening.

The same set had been adjusted - including the addition of a life size model of lion savaging a horse - to serve here. Roman costume, with swords. I puzzled on the day about the large stripes on the senatorial togas, although the site turned up by Bing today suggests that they were right. The same loud music as last time, although rather less of it. Rather less song and dance as well. But still, maybe a tad too much son et lumière. However, all in all, so far, so good.

The audience was much the same, less the fat people noticed last time. More tittering.

Skimming the text today, I suspect that a lot of the longer speeches were cut.

I liked the low key, sardonic Caesar.

Antony - a better Antony than the one appearing with Cleopatra - did quite a good job on crying havoc, although not as good as the film version noticed at reference 2. They didn't make as much of the fertility rite aspects of the Lupercalian run as they might have. Didn't get the business of the honourable men quite right.

I already noticed the clumsy handling of the dying Antony yesterday and here we have clumsy handling of the dead Caesar - handling which drew a loud male guffaw from my right. Clearly an itch the director felt he had to scratch, but an itch which I could have done without.

As at reference 1, I got on better with the first half than the second. Odd, as with plays at large, it is usually the other way around.

These matters apart, rather good. Still very relevant today with the lurch of much of the western world into unsavoury populism - and with the fat cats very much on the take. That has not changed. Perhaps better than the version noticed at reference 1, this last perhaps the end of quite a long run of going to the Globe. Can't take the hard seats any more, never mind the all too often pantomime themed performances.

Came out full of beans, well up for dining out, but by the time we were ensconced on the 1726 to Dorking, the home fires beckoned once again.

PS 1: the illustration is taken from Woodall doing the vile headmaster in the Rattigan play - 'The Browning Version' - about life in the English public school around the middle of the last century.

PS 2: probably our last visit to the Barbican for a while, with the theatre seemingly given over to dance for the next few months. So what with the upcoming St. Luke's programme not being to my taste either, perhaps no more of the excellent bacon sandwiches from Whitecross Street for a while.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/roman-affairs-resumed.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=rebirth.