JULIUS CAESAR. To 27 March.
London
JULIUS CAESAR
by William Shakespeare
Menier Chocolate Factory To 27 March 2004
Tue-Sun 7.30pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7378 1712
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 March
Julius and the Chocolate Factory offers a plain treatment.What apart from Chaucer and Shakespeare does Southwark have to offer artistically? This south-of-the-river London borough's up-and-coming. East of the Young Vic, there's Shakespeare's Globe, the Union Theatre and Southwark Playhouse (not to mention Tate Modern). And now this clean, not-too-small-scale space behind a handsome-looking Southwark Street eaterie, where once the cocoa poured.
A home-built season's planned from next autumn. Meanwhile, there are visiting companies, such as Cannon's Mouth with a young cast in a production clearly referring to modern regime change: the first sight is a shadow-statue, torn down Saddam-style by a rejoicing mob.
Not that they're anything to go by. As events unfold the crowd's manipulated moment-to-moment, tearing into a wandering poet without a moment's hesitation because he shares a name with one of the conspirators against Caesar. There's none of the brooding mass-mood of some productions. Populace and conspirators alike go straight for any jugular on offer.
This is politics for those finding vote-casting too intellectual or time-consuming a process. It's instant gratification action. Caesar's murder is finely-staged, the first stab coming as Casca emerges from the wall-hangings. For a moment Caesar might think he's staggering from a lone assassin towards help rather than another blow. By Brutus' stab - as pre-determinedly unemphatic as the others', Caesar's reaction has passed beyond surprise. Politics, clearly, is like this.
In a play about governing the known world, the young cast provide acres of undifferentiated verse-speaking. It shows understanding and is mercifully free of mis-emphases. But it's often led by generalised emotion rather than developing thought.
The main exception is Alex Blake's fine Casca, not overplaying the character's plain manner, but expressing a neat sense of irony (though his later characters seem to share the same near-smile expression so suited to Casca).
Good work too from Richard Simons' Mark Antony, combining sincerity with conscious manipulation, showing how Antony's skill in the famous Forum obsequy works because it's built on genuine, deep-felt if concealed passion.
Edmund Kingsley catches a sense of Caesar's self-certainty so ingrained it goes beyond mere arrogance. Director Ben Naylor wisely presents his ghost as a huge shadow outside Brutus' tent; something more forceful than a corporeal appearance.
And there's a bright, striking performance from Dagmar Doring as a concerned Caesar's wife, and an ever-watchful if not overly intelligent servant to Brutus. It's the kind that attracts attention, not through gratuitous busy-ness, but concentration and a detailed contribution to the development of a scene.
Soothsayer/Cicero/Lucilius: Nathanael Wiseman
Julius Caesar/Strato: Edmund Kingsley
Casca/Lepidus/Titinius: Alex Blake
Calpurnia/Lucius: Dagmar Doring
Mark Antony: Richard Simons
Marcus Brutus: James Tovell
Caius Cassius: Nick Barber
Cinna/Pindarus: George Calil
Portia/Messala: Isobel Pravda
Caius Ligurius/Cinna the Poet/Octavius Caesar: Dan Crow
Director: Ben Naylor
Designer: Colin Richmond
Lighting: Norman Bartholomew
Music: Jon Boden
Movement/Assistant director: Anna Morrissey
Dramaturg: Ben Power
2004-03-03 00:18:44