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'Julius Caesar' Evokes the 60s By Andrea Shea  Listen to story (Real Audio)
Now the A.R.T.'s staging evokes 1960s America and the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy. WBUR's Andrea Shea explores the connection. TEXT OF STORY: ANDREA SHEA: We've all seen classic images of Julius Caesar where he's draped in white cloth. The actors in the 1953 film version wear togas, including Marlon Brando as Mark Antony. CLIP: Brando saying, 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...' SHEA: And while those very same lines are delivered on stage at the A.R.T...the look, feel and sound of this 'Julius Caesar' are very different. MUSIC: jazz from rehearsal SHEA: At a recent rehearsal a jazz trio shares space with more than a dozen actors. Some wear tailored black suits...not togas. Director Arthur Nauzyciel traveled from France to stage the play, and says he's using clothes and music to ground his 'Julius Caesar' here. ARTHUR NAUZYCIEL: To find some connection and some links I can make with the play, this theater, the history of that theater and the audience in Boston. SHEA: The play runs at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, which was built in the 1960's...so that helps explain the retro leather couches and funky lamps on stage. Early on Cassius starts his campaign to turn Brutus against Caesar. PLAY SCENE: '...and since you know you cannot see your self so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself that of yourself which you yet know not of...' FADE SHEA: Director Nauzyciel wants to evoke the 60's...and JFK...without being literal. NAUZYCIEL: But it's true that there are some parallels between the murder of Kennedy and the murder of Caesar because those both times were moments that's have been really shifts in history. PLAY SCENE: Grunts and groans SHEA: Caesar's murder...on stage...is brutal. And bloody. Brutus, Cassius and the other conspiring senators stab him 33 times. THOMAS DERRAH: You know it's kind of cool to die like that. SHEA: Actor Thomas Derrah plays Caesar and says he connects the director's approach to the play. Derrah has done plenty of Shakespeare...'Julius Caesar' in grad school...and says only once has he had to wear a toga. DERRAH: And lace up sandals and we had spears and I thought this is really a clich?nd I thought I don't ever want to do this again. SHEA: And he never did. BENJAMIN EVETT: It's the exception rather than the rule nowadays for people to do Shakespeare in a traditional way or with period costumes. SHEA: Benjamin Evett is the Artistic Director at the Actors' Shakespeare Project in Cambridge. EVETT: To me Shakespeare is a contemporary playwright. And so the reason that his plays are so important to us is because they speak to us now. SHEA: But Evett acknowledges it can be dangerous when interpretations of Shakespeare are too topical. For instance, setting 'Julius Caesar' in Iraq could distract the audience. But the A.R.T's Artistic Director Gideon Lester says he's not scared of experimenting with a classic. GIDEON LESTER: Oh I think there have to be risks. I think it goes with the territory and it's why we do what we do. We can't confine Shakespeare to a museum. SHEA: And he says every generation has...and will...reinvent Shakespeare for themselves. But in the end the words, characters and themes are timeless. For WBUR I'm Andrea Shea. REPRISE JAZZ MUSIC
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