Casear Play Review

Justin Waterman

May 7, 2010

Professor Striff

Creative Writing

I saw Julius Caesar at the University of Hartford on Friday, April 7, 2012.  I had read the play in high school but had never actually seen it on stage prior to the showing.  I was greeted with a wonderful performance by the entire cast, and was thoroughly entertained, and glad that I ended up going.  The play was about the death of Julius Caesar and all that went along with it.  There was an assassination plot carried out by some of his close friends.  The play is filled with drama and is a tale of betrayal with some irony present there as well.

I think the playwright was trying to accomplish an array of things when putting together this play.  I feel that the playwright was trying to accurately depict the play as best as possible, and for the most part this was accomplished.   The script was stuck to, with no wild interpretations being added by the producer and everything seemed to flow smoothly.  I also feel that the playwright was trying to make Shakespeare easier to understand.  I personally had an easier time understanding the play and what was going on, as opposed to when I had to read the play and was lost at times.

            I believe that the intended effect on the audience is to be able to understand and follow along with what is going on.  Since Shakespeare language can be hard to understand at times, it was a little confusing.  Although there was some effort that went in as far as the audience understanding and simplifying the play, I felt that more effort could have been put in as if I had not read the play and been accustomed to the Shakespeare style I would have been confused.

            The play uses monologue very effectively and the conflict is easily seen throughout the various dialogue that takes place during the play.  Since you cant tell what the characters are thinking, it is some times hard for the audience to understand.  In this case, it was blatantly obvious that Brutus kills Caesar for different reasons than Marc Anthony for example.

            It was interesting to see the different lighting used throughout the play as it added to the various feelings that were being felt at that moment.  I particularly enjoyed when Caesar looked at Brutus and said “ E tu Brute?”.  I thought the actor did a fine job capturing the feelings of that moment, making it very powerful.  The play was a tad bit slow at times and took a little longer to develop than I would have liked but there was nothing overly drawn out. 

            If I were to see another play I think I would pick one with a little more flare.  I believe that this play was very well put together, but was dry at times.  This comes from my own personal taste as I am not a huge Shakespeare fan.  The play was fairly typical in the sense that you knew what was going to happen, there were no huge surprises or anything way out of wack or not on the script.  The setting and costumes were rather evocative as I felt I was in the roman times when I was watching the play as they were dressed in various garments not seen today.