JULIUS CAESAR: Act I

Full disclosure: I used to HATE this play. especially just after i first read it as a sophomore in high school. and it is still not one of my favorites but it is stunning how much it has grown on me.I think the main reason I hated it is because it is so poorly taught in high schools when its part of the curriculum. And we certainly didnt read much of it allowed although I do remember an assignment of memorizing ten lines and me picking portia and pretending to jam a pen in my leg... anyway i thought it was SO BORING and frustrating and i didnt care when anyone died. I still dont have an intense emotional connection to any of the characters, but working with some of my grad school clasmates who love this play has created an opportunity to see it in a new light. and I think what truly made me reconsider was seeing the ASCTC version with some very talented young people (including a truly captivating girl playing Cassius) made me listen to this story again...

1.1

The opening to this play is cool because it starts with commoners. Not royalty or witches or an ominous epilogue but everyday people. and some upper class powerful people chiding them of course. I think its interesting that the workmen are the witty ones and the powerful ones seem to have no sense of humor. marullus and Flavius drive the workmen out of the streets and insist on taking down any decoration or ceremony that might make Caesar get too big for his britches/feel better than them. they bring up the feast of Lupercal- a holiday time (so the workers have every right to party it up. jeez.) full of feasting and fertility and remembering the Roman beginnings of Romulus and Remus. a quick opening scene and we're on to

 

1.2

we begin with Caesar, the man of the hour, the titular character, and he starts the scene by calling for his wife. and why is he calling for her? because he wants her to make sure that Antony touches her during his race to cure her barrenness. Yes, he ANNOUNCES her barrenness to the entire crowd of people. that's the first impression we get of Caesar. what a dick. Next, a soothsayer comes up and tells Caesar to beware the ides of March, probably the most famous line of the play aside from friends, romans, countrymen... does caesar listen? No. He responds with: He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass. You know what Caesar? I like dreamers. and its your own fault when you get stabbed. see? i think maybe my problem was that i thought i had tot ry and like caesar when i first read it and i just can't. but then caesar leaves and we get this wonderful strange scene between Brutus and Cassius. Their relationship has become endlessly fascinating to me. This play is obviously a rhetorical gold mine since characters are obsessed with feeling each other out and playing the political game. an example, Brutus' response to Cassius:

Of late with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,
Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved--
Among which number, Cassius, be you one--
Nor construe any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

Even just taking the line among which number, Cassius, be you one is convoluted enough to make people think Shakespeare is hard and that they hate it as opposed to realizing this CHARACTER talks in a way that is intentionally less straightforward- more art less matter so to speak. and another thing i've realized i love about this play is the crazy philosophical themes just dropped into conversation:

CASSIUS

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
BRUTUS

No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself,
But by reflection, by some other things.

awesome. I actually think about reflections vs. reality a lot. It also makes me think of an acting teacher who once said "isn't it funny how almost everything we use to judge beauty- hair, nails, skin- its all dead." think on that.

So Cassius starts telling Brutus he will be his mirror and tell him the great things he doesn't see in himself when there's a commotion and Brutus says he's worried the people have chosen Caesar to rule.

Cassius seizes this opportunity to work some rhetorical magic:

Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
or to put it like the Muppets Take Manhattan: peoples is peoples ok? No need to treat Caesar like a god because he's just a dude (and not a cool dude at that.. but that's just me...) to emphasize Caesar's mortality, Cassius talked about how he once saved Caesar from drowning after he'd gone in the water on a dare from Caesar.

I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
I picked that passage because the image of Aeneas and Anchises is so beautiful and shows up again in the Henry VI plays we'll get to eventually. so beautiful, the language in this play is truly amazing.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
another theme that comes up over and over again and that I think about all the time. It reminds me of one of my mottos for the year, Helena's "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie..." it relates to one of my favorite concepts from my AP psych class: locus of control and whether you have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control and in which situations that belief changes. (Hint: the healthiest life is probably a reasonable balance of the two.... now if only I could find that!)

Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.
There's a lot of i'd rather be sentiments in this play. very grass is always greener huh?

Caesar comes back in and continues to win everyone over with the statement:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
HE THINKS TOO MUCH! ahahah all i can think of is this: http://jpegy.com/fandom/its-not-right-for-a-woman-to-read-soon-she-starts-getting-ideas-and-thinking-618

the rest of caesar's points are hit and miss. he doesnt like that Cassius reads so much (see above), he poitns out that cassius doesnt like theatre or music (though clearly he's big on philosophy and rhetoric. extremely left brained perhaps?) He finishes his speech with

I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
so not only is Caesar a dick, but also a liar. let's stab this sucker. (it really is amazing what i can get behind in storytelling that would horrify me in life. something to muse upon. I'm sure we'llt alka bout this more when we get to one of my favorite characters ever- Jack Cade. GOD THE HISTORY CYCLES ARE JUST SO GOOD!!!!)

Once caesar leaves brutus asks Casca what happened with all the hubbub and Casca explains that the crowd, led by Antony, offered caesar a crown three times and he declined. Casca's response interestingly jumps into prose. (the verse/prose choices throughout this play are wildly interesting) Casca seems to think Caesar wanted the crown the whole time, and perhaps the only reason he didnt take it the last time is:

He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.

I never realized how much SPUNK Casca has. He's kind of goofy and yet raw and harsh in his joking. he also gets the famous line it was Greek to me.

Cassius describes Casca in this way:

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.
I think Casca might be my favorite so far.

After Brutus and Cassius agree to meet later, Cassius pulls a Richard III and tells the audience how he's going to turn brutus against caesar by pretending to write notes form citizens of rome who look up to him/ adore him etc.etc. etc.

1.3

OK, I read this scene and think shakespare has to be messing with us right? Why else would the characters in this scene be Casca, Cassius, Cinna, and Cicero?! NOT ALL ROMAN NAMES BEGIN WITH C! It's storming in this scene which is always fun to create, especially when its said to be a fire storm. also lions roaming the streets?

Why old men fool and children calculate,
Why all these things change from their ordinance
I find this more chilling than the rest of the crazy times reported because its the most real and sad to me.

and then we get to start on the woman bashing:

But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
then there's talk about how suicide delivers us from slavery. now i'm remembering why this story disturbs me so much... but it does it with such great language

I think its interesting that Cassius knows Casca by his voice and Cinna by his walk...

All these men agree to help snare Brutus into their plans to overthrow Caesar. They all seem very disdainful of the common Romans. That's about it for Act I.

(Those of you in or lucky enough to see the ASCs ren season performance of Caesar, I'd love to hear about some of the performance choices!!)