![]() Brutus agrees, and at the funeral delivers a stirring oratory that explains the reasoning for the assassination. Mark Antony strikes a truce with the conspirators, asking to accompany Caesar's body and speak at his funeral. There he is stabbed to death by Brutus, Cassius, and the rest. Caesar, already warned by a soothsayer and Calphurnia, his wife, ignores all advice to the contrary and pays a visit to the Senate. However, Brutus dissuades the conspirators from slaying Antony with him. Eventually, with the prodding of Cassius and others, Brutus comes to rationalize such an act as necessary for a greater good. Brutus ponders his course of action, realizing that the conspiracy may well have to contemplate assassination. Brutus is also a close friend of Caesar, which adds to the moral dilemma presented in the play.Īs a metaphor for the coming action, a great storm besets Rome. To offset Caesar's support base, Cassius makes overtures to Marcus Brutus, a nobleman known for his integrity and idealism if Brutus were to support it, a conspiracy would seem more palatable to the citizens of Rome. However, the popularity that Julius Caesar enjoys makes any plot against him particularly difficult. Cassius in particular has serious misgivings about Caesar's ambition. ![]() When the senators see the reactionincluding Mark Antony attempting three times to crown him as a kingsome take this as a threat to Rome. He has triumphed first over the Gauls, then over the army of Pompey. Individual performances were mixed, Paterson Joseph (Brutus) and Ray Fearon (Mark Anthony) outshone the rest in passion and good old-fashioned enunciation.Julius Caesar enters Rome on the Feast of Lupercal as a hero beloved by the populace. Brutus’ slave boy (Simon Manyonda) provided delightful comic relief throughout and his traditional musical instrument kept the second half going. We could have done with the curtain coming down after we -friends, Romans, countryman – had leant Mark Anthony our ears rather than having an half an hour of campfire mumbling, battlefields and suicides that the numerous schoolchildren– possibly fairly – found highly entertaining. Frankly, the play is simply too long much better that Shakespeare had stowed his quill after the funereal speeches following the Et Tu Brute assassination. Produced by Gregory Doran (the new Artistic Director of the RSC), the most well-known of Shakespeare’s Roman play is set in an African state: a pertinent setting to debate dictatorship. The RSC’s production of Julius Caesar has a far greater concern for honour. The ‘innocent’ country wife (played deliciously by Amy Morgan) alone has anything approaching a moral compass but is so naive and easily manipulated as to be worthy of pity. There are no honourable men to be found, and the play is a raucous delight for that. This play gives clear warning to married men to not let their wives near the theatre. Young wits cuckold jealous husbands from start to finish. The play, so scandalised censors that it was not performed for 200 years William Wycherley rips apart all decent behaviour in the comic romp. Polly Findlay’s production of The Country Wife at the Royal Exchange is a rampantly sexualised farce set in Seventeenth Century London.
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