Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (review)

Peachum to make a symbolic statement about Brecht's life. We can tolerate fiddling with other peoples' sacred symbols, but are not able to treat the matter so lightly when our own are appropriated. Professionals in the theatre, and professional theatre-goers, do not like to be twitted concerning their Gods, particularly those whom they claim to know intimately. Eugenio Barba and the Odin Teatret have done just that. In doing so they may have committed sacrilege in the temple of drama, but all ideologiesboth religious and semi-religious-need levelling at some point. Seeing Brecht's Ashes 2 gives everyone who is seriously interested in theatre and performance a much-needed perspective on the creation of myth in dramatic modalities. Julius Caesar William Shakespeare Directed by Robert Woodruff Alliance Theatre (Atlanta) Gautam Dasgupta If there is one single aspect in the American theatre that has fast been losing ground during the past two decades, it surely is the tradition of staging classics of the world dramatic repertoire. This glorious tradition, which must perforce nurture the creativity of a newer generation of theatre artists, has been dealt a near fatal blow by the unending search for the latest wunderkind of a playwright or by the excessive spiralling costs of mounting a dramatic work with more than two and 1/3 characters, the fraction being manifest on stage either by a prop or the latest theatrical technological marvel. When the classics were done at all, they either succumbed to the dreary imitative stagings of someone's idea of the "true classical tradition," or else were brought up-to-date through a mindless transposition of locale and/or costume changes. By the mid-seventies, such tactics were also discarded, this time in favor of another senseless novelty which is being practiced to this very day-I speak of the entrance of the translator /adaptor. The utilization of this most recent strategy is employed in the belief that by so doing one has somehow updated the play, made it more "relevant" to our times and our concerns. It is as if the translator/adaptor, not the director, must carry the burden of interpreting the play's textual element . In all these instances, what is sorely lacking is the input of thoughtful, intelligent direction, or rather direction that thinks through the play in the performance of it. Such directorial tendencies have long been a staple of theatrical performances elsewhere, particularly in post-war Europe, and it is only recently that similar longings have been felt by a younger crop of directors here. One need only look at the vision and artistic craftsmanship of directors such as Peter Brook, Peter Stein, Patrice Ch6reau, Lucian Pintilie, and others to find 69 exhilarating ways in which classical plays can and ought to be re-visioned not just for our age, but for their multi-dimensional complexity and "livingness ," the concentrated potency of accrued knowledge about life and artistry with which these works were imbued at the time they were written. Classical plays, all plays for that matter, are not an excuse for windowdressing ; it is the expenditure of serious thought on beauty that creates art of the kind that nourishes us with glimpses into the unknown mysteries of life. The rest is sheer merchandising. And it was this rare elation that I felt while witnessing guest director Robert Woodruff's radical, even futuristic, staging of Julius Caesar at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre this past April. That such a promethean task, speaking quantitively of course, could nowadays only be mounted by a regional theatre speaks well of a movement that has finally come of age. Aided amply by a stable support system of subscription audiences, and blessed by being removed from the showbiz glare and so-called competitiveness (more often of abject mediocrities) of the New York scene, regional theatres are now opening up more and more to experimentation in the theatre. Needless to say, the battle is yet to be won, since most regional theatres serve a largely traditional audience (and, contrary to most beliefs, New York audiences are not that different) who hunger for entertaining fare; but given their far-reaching economic base (relatively speaking) they...