Julius Caesar

Abstract

Larry Oliver… missed the mark… The production lacked interpretative clarification of the characters and the meanings of their actions… Decius was so lacking in subtlety that only a suicide would have followed him to the Senate. Consequently Caesar’s dilemma of character was reduced to contrivance of plot… [The political ironies] were obviously vitiated by the characterization of Caesar, by a Mob Scene which totally drowned the response to Brutus of the Third Plebe… and by a failure to focus or inspire the proscription scene of Act Four… [Cassius and Brutus] … were uninspired, finding some moments of truth in the tent of Brutus, but generally failing to come to honest terms with the meanings of the language and actions they suggest. Creditable performances of Portia, Titinius, Mark Antony, and Casca helped salvage an evening otherwise marred. (Robin Carey, Shakespeare Quarterly 21 [1970]: 463–64)