Julius Caesar by Shakespeare is one of my favorite plays by him. I saw it before I ever read it. I was just married, so it was about 24 years ago! But I still remember how much it impressed me. The National Shakespeare Theatre was trying to find a home, I think. It was doing this novel thing of putting the play on in a half built high rise in Arlington. My aunt called me up and said they are doing this play right down the street from where you live! So she drove over, parked at my townhouse and we walked over to see the play. There was no set, barely any props, just lots of folding chairs set up on a huge concrete slab in an under construction office building. You could hear all the traffic in the streets below. All that vanished the minute the play started. There was only Brutus, Cassius, Marc Antony, Octavius, and Julius Caesar. Oh the pathos! It was incredible.
I just finished reading this to Seano. I'm not sure he got much out of it, but it thrilled me yet again. So much high honor and sacrifice, such clever words, such violence and such broken-heartedness. A wonderful, wonderful play, worth reading and seeing over and over again. We only read one of the many commentaries written at the back of the book. The commentaries are why Ignatius Critical Editions are my favorites when it comes to reading the classics. We did read the first commentary by James Bemis and it was really interesting. He compares three film versions of Julius Caesar. The one he gave a D+ to is the one I own. We tried to watch it but we found it really flat and slow so we gave up after the first scene. But now I am really tempted to get the 1953 Marlon Brando version and watch that one!
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