Monday, June 23, 2008

“The Most Honorable Man of All”


On Saturday, I went to see Julius Caesar at the DC Shakespeare Theater’s Harman Hall. It is a lovely brand new facility (the one where I saw Major Barbara actually) and it was great to go on a Saturday afternoon and not be in a full rush and panic trying to get downtown after work. By observation, I do believe the average age of the usual Saturday afternoon attendee is around 72, although it was a rather more diverse crowd than usual, which was heartening to see.

I did enjoy this production of this oft read Shakespeare play – the production was about 3 hours with intermission, but the time really flew! The only quibble I had was with the sets, which upon first glance looked to me like Rome by way of some Japanese Steakhouse décor – lots of rich woods and retracting stairs and balconies, which did make the sets very versatile. Once I got over that, I was fine.

As you all know, the story is more about Brutus than Julius Caesar and the gentleman who played Brutus was amazing. My friend J didn’t like the fellow who played Mark Antony, however, I thought he did very well, especially considering that the original person who had been playing the part injured himself a week ago, so this fellow had not been long in the role. I thought he did the “Friends, Romans, Countrymen . . .” scene very ably and with a good bit of humor, which usually you don’t notice when reading the play.

The play runs through the first week of July, and is running in repertory with Antony and Cleopatra, which I’m also going to see this weekend. I’ll let you know if that play is good too – a lot of the characters overlap, which will be interesting to see.

In other news, the schedule for the DC Fringe Festival is out and I am very excited. This year it is going to run from July 10 to 27, and have events in more venues all around the city, not just in one area. You can check out the offerings here. It’s almost like Christmas, I’m so looking forward to it, and I do want to see as much as I can.

I hope you all had wonderful weekends!

PS – Yes, my sister is in the States for good this time. Her tenure in the Army should be ending at the end of December – unless she decides to re-up, which then I’ll just have to have myself a coronary . . .

No comments: