Hmmmm an Alphabetical Day Off

Hmmmm an Alphabetical Day Off.  What should I do with that?  Silly question really.  The same thing I do on other days just non-alphabetically.

So today's post is about a production of Julius Caesar I saw at Cincy Shakes last night.  Let me start by stating that I am a huge fan of the bard and of this company - although I miss Giles Davies' presence there. I am such a nerd for Shakes that I forced my brother Duz to see As You Like It performed at the Globe when we were in London.  PERFECTION!

I read JC back in 10th grade.  Boring Bardly-stuff that one.  Not among my faves and one I imagined passing on.  But then I heard it was being staged with the women playing the roles of the men.  Anyone who has read the blog knows that one of the things in my head stewing is how to reverse the gender roles of Beauty and the Beast and craft a believable story on that framework.  So this seemed a good opportunity to see how it might look on a big stage.  No idea what I was thinking.

Bottom line.  It SUCKED.  It sucked as much as the opera Nixon in China which made me want to stab both my eardrums with a standard yellow #2 pencil at intermission so as not to be subject to any more of it.  It remains the only opera that I did not love.

So what went wrong?  Good question.  J and I tried to analyze that, but in the end we both just ended up laughing.  Why didn't someone see the suck-i-tude before now?  Surely someone else spotted the ridiculousness?  But sadly no.  As a woman sitting in the audience, I was almost offended by it (OK - yes good art does that sometimes.  But was that their purpose in staging it this way?)

1)  Women are not really sword-y.  Forensic scientist knows we are more the poison apple kinda gender.  Or we will just make you so miserable that you kill yourself.  (that's a joke folks).  So that piece felt wrong from the start.  CSC then made it worse by issuing knives instead of full length swords, at least one of which was a samurai short sword, another an Arabic curved knife, ninja blades.  WTF!?!   Surely the prop dept has swords that are....well.....SWORDS.

2)  Women can rock the scheming and intrigue of politics just as well as a man perhaps even better.  So on the surface it seems the play might work.  But the Bard's words are those of a man, not shaped for a woman's mouth.  It was hard to buy Brutus' patriotic bent because a woman would never choose country over a beloved friend even if that friend were an asshat.  We are better than that.

3)  Women are not so bound up in honor as to kill themselves.  (Course this one could just be my prejudice).  Yet there they are are in Acts IV and V falling all over their knives...er....swords.

4)  J pointed out to me how the costumes looked like they were better suited to Star Wars.  Laughing my ass off I grudgingly ceded this as true.

5)  Mostly I think it was just the thought forms that didn't fit.  The language of war alternating with undying words of friendship and honor felt stilted.  The friendship parts sometimes brushed up against something real feeling, but the words of war out of the women's mouths felt wrong.  Except for Jolin Polasek's Octavius - who just scared me.  At least SHE was believable.

The single stand-out for me was Christopher Guthrie as Portia.  He made every woman in the audience sigh with his tender and genuine portrayal of her.  Bad as I found it, I salute the courage of it and the discussion it fostered.  Now please put the Bard back where he belongs.