Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

his mob, but unlike Kemble, Macready choreographed their
movements to complement stage action. He was thus able to
heighten the emotional effect of the assassination sequence
for his audience, engaging their sympathy by showing the horrified
reaction of people just like themselves. In Macready’s
hands, Julius Caesar became a social tragedy.
In 1881 the Meiningen Court Company visited London with
its production of Julius Caesar. Famous for its development of
ensemble acting, the Court Company was an early influence
on Constantin Stanislavski, the “father” of modern acting. In its
productions—unlike the touring “star” vehicles endemic to the
period—no one performer was supposed to stand out to the
detriment of another. Stage designs were meticulous in their
attention to historical accuracy and grandeur. The company’s
increased attention to minor roles sometimes meant major
roles went underdeveloped and undistinguished. The Meiningen
troupe used hundreds of supernumeraries, or extras, to
create detailed, realistic Roman street scenes. They recruited
a London actor, Ludwig Barnay, to play Antony. Barnay’s Antony
so stood out from this lifelike Rome that the performance
became incredibly popular, with the effect that Antony afterwards
became “the” role
for actors to play.
After seeing the Meiningen
production, Herbert
Beerbohm Tree staged a
pictorially ornate production
in 1898, cut significantly
to accommodate
numerous and complicated scene shifts. Critics felt the production
was not so much Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as a
beautiful pantomime. By this time, audiences had become accustomed
to a high level of historical accuracy in stage design,
and Tree felt that for them to be suitably impressed by Shakespeare
they had to be awed by the splendor of ancient Rome.
Tree decided to play Antony himself after seeing Barnay’s performance.
Rather than play a supporting role, he, too, made
Antony the center of attention—this time by cutting and rearranging
the text. With Antony at center stage, other characters,
especially Brutus, underwent major changes. Brutus lost
dialogue, which in Shakespeare’s text had once presented him
in a sympathetic light, and Caesar finally ceased to be a stock
character tyrant as he evolved into the hero’s valued friend.
One of the most influential productions of the twentieth century
was New York City’s Mercury Theatre production November
of 1937, directed by Orson Welles. Indeed, many critics
regard this production as the singlemost important production
of Shakespeare on the American stage, as it opened days after
the pre-WWII alliance of Italy, Germany and Japan. Presenting
one of this century’s first “concept” productions of Julius Cae-
A PLAY COMES TO LIFE
sar, Welles used the widespread anti-fascist, prodemocracy
sentiment that then engulfed the country. Caesar was a blackclothed,
jack-booted European tyrant, and Welles, playing Brutus,
looked very much like the Italian dictator Mussolini. Welles
cut the play so drastically that it ran for a mere 109 minutes,
and transposed scenes to better illustrate the unifying idea of
his production. He also added lines from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
for the plebians. The production proved so successful
that is was the first by a professional theater company in
America to be recorded for distribution.
Perhaps the best-known film version of Julius Caesar is the
1953 version, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and starring the
young Marlon Brando as Marc Antony. Producing the film was
John Housemann, who had worked with Orson Wells on his
Mercury Theater production sixteen years before. The only alteration
of Shakespeare’s original text was the cutting of the
Portia and Lucius scene, and the Cinna the Poet massacre.
The film opens with lines from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, giving
the audience the background for the story, as well as linking
Shakespeare’s story to a larger literary and historical context.
Mankiewicz’s interpretation strongly favored Marc Antony over
the conspirators, partly
Unlike the touring “star” vehicles
endemic to the period—no one performer
was supposed to stand out to
the detriment of another
a grave threat.
because of Brando’s
Academy Award-nominated
performance, and
partly due to the political
climate of the time,
which viewed the questioning
of the government
and its leaders as
Julius Caesar’s stars in the twentieth century also included Sir
John Gielgud, who played Cassius repeatedly in London and
Stratford before starring in the 1953 Academy Award-winning
film alongside Marlon Brando. Gielgud’s was one of the first
portrayals of Cassius to give the part nobility of character rather
than simply playing foil to the stoic Brutus.
Caesar hit the silver screen again in 1970 with director Stuart
Burge and a cast including Charlton Heston as Marc Antony
and Sir John Gielgud as Caesar. Burge, who had directed
Julius Caesar for the BBC film production in 1959, received
much less praise than the Mankiewicz version. The New York
Times described the film “as flat and juiceless as a dead haddock,”
and The Sun scorned its “hideous cardboard scenery.”
Critics raged over miscasting and the use of fake English accents.
Charlton Heston is quoted as having said Antony was
“the easiest” of all Shakespearean roles—perhaps why his performance,
too, was mocked by theatergoers and critics alike.
Despite its spectacular budget, the acting and directing did
not add up to a spectacular production. Other film versions
www chicagoshakespeare com 35