"Julius Caeser" at the A.R.T. -- tuning out the claptrap

We saw Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" at the American Repertory Theater this past Sunday. As usual, we had to fight hard to ignore the A.R.T.'s laughable and absurd directorial flourishes. I felt that the actors and the play managed to overcome the claptrap and show us a Brutus whose torment is the central issue in the first act -- does Brutus, a patriotic nobleman, act against Caesar when he threatens to become a despotic tyrant, even joining the plot to kill him, or does he acquiesce and become, in his terms, a well paid slave? The second act is about the bedfellows you make and the consequences after you've joined that plot and carried out the crime.

Of course, it would have helped if Shakespeare had shown us a Julius Caesar who actually seemed to be a tyrant, somebody willing to hack off a few heads or pluck a a couple of eyes out of his opponents before breakfast. Instead, we get an uncle-like figure who enjoys having his breakfast tea with his beautiful wife, calling for the day's augury from the local priestesses (Rome's version of the Times).

The lines were acted straightforwardly. Cassius is ravenous and terrific. A real schemer, with a genuine lean and hungry look. The actor who played Mark Antony, although not much in the way of a stage presence, did have the wonderful presence of mind to save the funeral oration scene -- Brutus walked off center stage before he was finished. He'd forgotten that he had more crucial lines. Mark Antony made two subtle whispering asides, the second loud enough for the audience to hear, and Brutus, startled, remembered the rest and bounded back into the rest of the oration.

The claptrap: black suits, hats, and sunglasses on the squad of conspirators -- yes, I got the insane grassy knoll allusion to the supposed CIA plotters who took part in the assassination of JFK -- which made them look like the Blues Brothers. Caesar rises up all bloody from the dead at the end of the first act and lets out a long primal (very primal) scream. I suppose that was to tip us off that his ghost was going to be around in the second act. The acrobatic stage entrances and exits by the lesser characters. The misplaced songs by the quite good jazz trio ("Suicide is dangerous"). The ensemble dance scene at the end of the play.

All of this only distracted from the drama. You can only feel embarassment for the actors.