Thursday, February 21, 2013
Et tu?
I saw Julius Ceasar at the Shakespeare Theatre last night. It was all right. Of course, I'm quite biased because I appeared in what must be considered the definitive production of Caesar in my ninth grade English class. I played the all-important role of whoever's line it ended up being when the rotation around the whole classroom got to me. God, how I used to pray that none of the long monologues would end up landing on one of the dumb kids. Otherwise I might be late for homeroom and miss out on my Channel One. I wonder if they still have Channel One, mainly because I feel pretty sure that Kathy Kronenberger is otherwise unemployable.
Anyway, I felt like it wasn't quite up to their usual standard there. Some of the dialogue was a bit flat and they tacked a crowd scene/dance number onto the beginning that was quite frankly insane. Also they added lots of gunfire and explosions, which seemed kind of weird for a show that centers on a stabbing. Why resort to the ol' dagger when you've got an assault weapon at hand?
There were several hilarious moments involving the old people sitting all around us, however. We definitely got to experience ten minutes of rustling from someone opening her hard candy during Act IV, along with some trenchant commentary on the relative merits of the bathrooms at various performing arts venues in the city. My favorite, though, was when an older gent on my left complained about the dance number at the beginning "not seeming necessary" and his wife told him that they had to include it "for the young people." Yeah, I'm pretty sure Caesarian line dancing is going to be the next Harlem Shake.
I saw Julius Ceasar at the Shakespeare Theatre last night. It was all right. Of course, I'm quite biased because I appeared in what must be considered the definitive production of Caesar in my ninth grade English class. I played the all-important role of whoever's line it ended up being when the rotation around the whole classroom got to me. God, how I used to pray that none of the long monologues would end up landing on one of the dumb kids. Otherwise I might be late for homeroom and miss out on my Channel One. I wonder if they still have Channel One, mainly because I feel pretty sure that Kathy Kronenberger is otherwise unemployable.
Anyway, I felt like it wasn't quite up to their usual standard there. Some of the dialogue was a bit flat and they tacked a crowd scene/dance number onto the beginning that was quite frankly insane. Also they added lots of gunfire and explosions, which seemed kind of weird for a show that centers on a stabbing. Why resort to the ol' dagger when you've got an assault weapon at hand?
There were several hilarious moments involving the old people sitting all around us, however. We definitely got to experience ten minutes of rustling from someone opening her hard candy during Act IV, along with some trenchant commentary on the relative merits of the bathrooms at various performing arts venues in the city. My favorite, though, was when an older gent on my left complained about the dance number at the beginning "not seeming necessary" and his wife told him that they had to include it "for the young people." Yeah, I'm pretty sure Caesarian line dancing is going to be the next Harlem Shake.
