2017 Shakespeare in the Park — Page 3

I think the reaction had more to do with who it was.

Anyone have any luck with the TodayTix lottery? I'm trying to go with two other people and we all plan to enter for 2 tickets and hope 2 of us win

I saw this evening's performance. I liked it quite a bit up through the well-staged assassination scene. Having read the comments here and on the other board -- and generally disliking attempts to make great plays more "relevant" through modern allusions -- I was expecting the worst. However, I enjoyed Gregg Henry as Caesar, even though his loud, obnoxious, giant-toddler persona didn't really cohere with Brutus' descriptions of Caesar as a decent, measured leader.

In any case, once Marc Antony came to the fore, I found the rest of the evening very hit and miss. In my view, Elizabeth Marvel's approach was frequently awful -- overacted in the extreme, even granting that, part of the time, her character is putting on a show for the rubes.

Also, I agree with an earlier post suggesting that the focus on police brutality in the second half of the show is ineffective and confusing. To my mind, everything grows increasingly incoherent as the evening progresses, but -- if I understood correctly -- the second battle of Philippi has been turned into or conflated with a brief confrontation between unarmed protestors and riot police. When the chanting protestors were all gunned down, I was unmoved and could only think, "Next time there's a war, consider bringing weapons."

I did like the confrontation between Brutus and Cassius, one of my favorite scenes in any play, and well-handled by Stoll and Thompson. Mostly, though, I became increasingly disengaged as the night wore on.

Ouch! I feel like I should apologize for recommending Eustis' work so highly in the early posts of this thread.

As I said, when he did the same play at the Taper, the concept was "American Camelot", but the Caesar was black; so it didn't feel like the reference was so pointed.

What was brilliant was the use of video to explore politics as a mass medium. But even then Acts IV and V seemed to wander off a bit. I think that may be a problem in the text, but I see where the parody of earlier acts would make it even worse.

Sorry, guys.

I haven't (and won't get a chance to) see this production, but I'd like to state that it always bothers me when Directors take a side in the politics of Julius Caesar. I think Shakespeare's brilliance is that the play presents a situation where the most sympathetic characters are the ones his audience would consider the villains (remember, at the time Julius Caesar was believed to have constructed the tower of London and was generally considered one of history's greatest heroes). I feel like unless Caesar and Anthony are just as sympathetic as Brutus and Cassius, the horrors of the play are lost, the sense that a bunch of decent men have been seduced by power and fear into ripping an empire in two. Anthony has three funeral orations over the course of the play (His private grief over Caesar's Body, the Big one in the public square and the eulogy over Brutus at the end) and if you don't get the sense he is generally grieving both men, I think you've failed. To turn Caesar into a cartoonish caricature of Trump makes the play relevant but looses SO much of the nuance of the play. There's textual evidence and historical president for what Eustis is doing - Orson Wells' seminal production in 1937 painted Caesar and Anthony as dictators and frankly I would have given my left eye to have been able to see that - but every time I see this take, I think something major is lost. And, politically, I think this is such a case of preaching to the choir that the whole thing seems pointless. The audience who comes to see Shakespeare in the park is likely heavily liberal to begin with, and this isn't going to convert or unsettle any Trump supporters who do wind up in the audience. It just all seems kind of lazy.

Personally, I say to hell with Shakespeare's intentions. Some of the best Shakespeare productions I've ever seen have taken some drastic liberties with the intended meaning of the text. I think deviating from Shakespeare's intentions is perfectly ok and often creates incredibly resonant productions. My problem is that Eustis didn't actually attempt to do that. All he did was lazily throw trump in the play and hoped for the best. If he had drastically cut, re-interpreted, and re-focused the text to accommodate the shifted balance of putting in a hated contemporary political figure, this production could have been really interesting. As ChairInMan said, it was lazy to do what Eustis did. On the surface it seems bold and gutsy, but considering his liberal audience, it was perhaps the most obvious and safe thing he could have done.

Any update on what would be the best time to get in the in person rush line in Central Park? Is it necessary to get there at 6am? I know word of mouth has been mixed on here but it's still difficult to gauge how popular the show is.

dev101 said: "Anyone have any luck with the TodayTix lottery? I'm trying to go with two other people and we all plan to enter for 2 tickets and hope 2 of us win



"

Anyone have any info?

BakerWilliams said: "
I mean people re-appropriating his plays to make their own political point that was clearly not intended in the text. It's one think for Brecht to re-write Antigone to be about fascism, because that myth existed before and after Sophocles, but it's another to outright take the text of someone else and apply your own meaning to it.



Also, Caesar is supposed to be a sympathetic character in the play. His own persona is far too interesting for him to just be a villain.



"

There are almost as many versions of ANTIGONE as there are playwrights, but in Sophocles' day, she was considered an historical figure, just as we think of Julius Caesar.

I'm not sure it's possible to just "do Shakespeare as it was written". First, we don't have texts in his handwriting; most if not all of his plays were written down after his death based on the memory of actors. Second, theater is a social art form and draws a large part of its meaning from context--yet we can't recreate the social context of the 16th or 17th centuries. So every director has to create a project that will convey the original intent to a modern audience. To some, that may be done with straight-forward recreations; to others, liberties will be required to convey the playwright's intent.

For every outrageous distortion, I've seen a deadly dull attempt at literal repetition. Shakespeare survives nonetheless.

***

I don't speak for Eustis and haven't seen him in years, but I can promise you that nothing he does in his work is "thoughtless" or "lazy". Whether it works for you or not (and it's seeming like the judgment is closer to 50/50 now), I'm sure he had a specific reason for portraying Caesar as Trump.

The play ultimately decides against Brutus and Cassius; they are tragic figures, so they made some error in judgement that brought misfortune on them and/or those they love. If Caesar is "sympathetic", then their error is obvious. But if Caesar is a monster, how they can be wrong to overthrow him? So maybe Caesar is a charismatic demagogue, and where have we seen that type of late? (This paragraph is all me, thinking aloud. I have no insider info on the production.)

Confidential to Chairinmain: I agree with you and I suspect Eustis would as well. Without seeing the production, I don't want to start speculating as to what he was trying to accomplish, except to say I'd be very surprised if he is unaware of the Welles production you describe.

Updated On: 6/6/17 at 02:24 AM

Saw this production last night and really enjoyed it. I thought this interpretation was excellent. I didn't find the trump scenes to be overdone or offensive, especially because by the end of the play, everyone is dead anyways. Stoll was an excellent Brutus, but the true standout for me was Thompson's Cassius. His delivery showed such a great understanding of Shakespeare's work, and it was a thrill to watch.

Anyone ever do the standby line for opening night? Do they have more extra tickets than usual since there is no other distribution methods or is the whole theater booked and there's a slim chance of any cancellations?

^^

Also wondering if there are any line reports. Thinking of going at 5:45 tomorrow but not thinking that will do the trick.

I tried today- got there at 8 and the line was extremely long. At 10:30 or so someone came down and let us know that there was no way we could get tickets.