I have officially started my MA at King’s College and The
Globe in Shakespeare Studies. This is exciting for a number of reasons.
Firstly, living in London for the first time! Ok, maybe it’s dawned on me that
this is less exciting and more terrifying and daunting compared to what now
seems teeny tiny lovely Brighton. I’m just about getting to grips with it…I
think. But something that has not become any less
exciting is going to The Globe every day! Also being able to geek out with all
the other geeking outers on the course who don’t bat an eyelid at a little (a
lot) geeking out. Our first outing as a group was to see The Globe’s production
of Julius Caesar.
Yawn yawn, Julius
Caesar, it’s only redeeming feature is the much quoted and surprisingly
useful ‘et tu brute?’. Apart from that it’s just boring men boring the rest of
us with their boring man issues. Right? WRONG. As may or may not be obvious by
now, I have a soft spot for Shakespeare. But we all have those plays we think
the world could do without. Probably doesn’t help that I studied the play at
the tender age of 13 and all I remember is a rather quaint cartoon (the creepy
over-realistic kind, rather than the fun cute kind) of the play being put in front
of us perhaps in the vain hope of engaging us. Well, I could now go back and tell my
Year 9 teacher that if they’d taken us to see THIS production every single one
of us would be JC fanatics to this day.
Before everyone had even taken their seats or picked the
perfect standing position, there were plebeians and townsmen ramming a box
through the audience, mounting it and chanting ‘CAESAR CAESAR’, forcing us
to join in. We were no longer 21st century audience members
dubiously waiting for one of the plays widely acknowledged as LESS exciting
than some others, oh no. We were members of the Roman public, part of the mob,
pawns in a political crisis, screaming the name of whoever had taken our fancy
that day. But more on the mob later.
Caesar (George Irving) emerged. The very first thing that
struck me was his humour! Of all things, Caesar was a joker. Maybe an
inadvertent, over-cocky and over-assured joker, but a joker nonetheless. After
the original spectacle of Caesar’s first scene, complete with a lifesize cow
swinging from the ceiling, among other things, my stars of the show came on for
their first scene. Brutus and Cassius, often imagined by me as middle-aged men
desperate with jealousy, instead materialised as rather dishy socialist heroes
(insert cheer here). OK the heroes bit is up for debate, but I think that
loaded phrase really encapsulates the political element that makes this play SO
exciting – especially the fact that it totally resonates with today’s world.
Marc Antony (Luke Thompson) stole the end of the first half, subtly sarcastic
lines such as ‘I am no orator as Brutus’ and ‘I only speak right on’ jumped out
of his manipulative tone. I felt they could have been said by any Tom Dick or
Harry, or maybe Ed, Nick or Dave…the mobilisation of the electric mob mentality
that was charging round the entire playhouse momentarily took over from the
specificities of the Caesar plot and exploited the vulnerable malleability of people’s
opinion through speech alone.
I want to briefly return to Brutus, played by Tom McKay, as
this Brutus does now hold a special place in my heart. My first impression was
that the actor was a little uneasy and slightly static. But then I realised, he
was being such a realistic Brutus that I had almost missed it! Brutus’ internal
anguish and indecision was so perfectly epitomised in the tone of every single
word he spoke, every movement he made, and every expression of the eyes (I’ll
give that as my reason for why I couldn’t stop staring at them). It was because
of this close attention to each detail that the exact moment where Brutus
switches from hesitant senate member to ring-leading conspirator was so
palpable. The relationship between Brutus and Cassius (Anthony Howell) was so
emotional that people around me were shedding a tear. Theirs became a love
story and it worked perfectly. By the end, when Brutus reveals his wife’s
death, and the ghost of Caesar comes to him (spoiler: Caesar dies), his
development comes full circle: he returns to the first Brutus we met, full of
courage and dignity but hopelessly conscience haunted and pragmatic.
So as not to ramble on TOO much, I have just a few more
concise highlights I feel I must mention. The use of music was something I
haven’t experienced too much in the theatre before, and the mix between Latin
singing and more contemporary, unusual tunes added a trauma and emotion to the
traditional bloody murder scenes – a great juxtaposition of spectacle and sombre
mood. In particular, the harp song which Lucius plays in the second half as Brutus
paces his tent cemented this as my favourite scene by far. The jig at the end
was also a new experience for me, I just loved that no matter the mood at the
close of the play (spoiler alert #2: it doesn’t end well), everyone breaks into
a jolly, energetic dance together to end the show – so uplifiting!
One final thing – tiny details are something I love to
seek out in any performance, and Decius’ slow, subtle peeling of a tangerine in
the night conspiratorial scene had me in (albeit inappropriate) stitches.
PS DON’T MISS the twist at the end. Pure interpretative
gold. Ok I’m done.
It’s on until 11th October so DO get tickets
here!
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