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ReviewBare Theatre Review ROGUE COMPANY'S “JULIUS CAESAR” MARCHED TO THE BEAT English playwright William Shakespeare's timeless tragedy JULIUS CAESAR, which Bare Theatre's youthful Rogue Company performed on July 23-26 at Common Ground Theatre in Durham, NC, is a lurid tale of unquenchable ambitions and sordid political intrigue and assassination in ancient Rome, circa 44-42 B.C. This spirited production marked the culmination of a free summer conservatory program for aspiring actors aged 14 to 24. They may have lacked polish and gravitas, but they never lacked enthusiasm. Staged with great gusto by Bare Theatre artistic director Carmen-maria Mandley, this briskly paced version of JULIUS CAESAR definitely marched to the beat of a different drummer -- in this case, G. Todd Buker, a.k.a. Proxy, whose rhythmic pounding onstage emulated the feverish pulse of the Eternal City in those heady days when triumphant general Julius Caesar (played by Miriam Greenlee) marched into Rome and threatened to depose the elected leaders of the Roman Republic and make himself sole dictator. Cross-gender casting is a Bare Theatre trademark; and in JULIUS CAESAR, it has mixed results. Miriam Greenlee was tall and game, but never quite captured the majesty and menace that was Caesar. The Brutus of Tara Pozo likewise fell short of demonstrating why Caesar's friend and betrayer Brutus was called the noblest Roman of them all. Matt Fields gave the conniving Cassius that lean and hungry look, and a frowning Garrett Stein-Seroussi at times showed hints of the eloquence that made the silver-tongued Mark Antony so dangerous, when he was demagoging the death of Caesar and inciting his irate fellow citizens of Rome to turn on Caesar's murderers. Jeff Buckner as the Soothsayer and Sasha Brown as Brutus and Cassius' wily fellow conspirator Casca also deserve special mention. But director Carmen-maria Mandley conceived this rendition of JULIUS CAESAR as an ensemble piece, and set her youthful actors in near-constant motion, reducing some of the play's key characters to little more than pawns on a chess board. Sometimes the lightning pace is also a detriment -- indeed, many of the Immortal Bard's most poetic passages were performed at a gallop or drowned out by the dynamic drumming, making this imaginative new staging of JULIUS CAESAR only partially successful. SHOW: http://www.baretheatre.org/next.html. PRESENTER: http://www.baretheatre.org/. VENUE: http://www.cgtheatre.com/. OTHER LINKS: Shakespeare Resources (courtesy University of Virginia): http://etext.virginia.edu/shakespeare/. E-text of Play (also courtesy UVa): http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ShaJCF.html (1623 First Folio, edited by John Heminge and Henry Condell) and http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MobJuli.html (1866 Globe Edition, edited by William George Clark and William Aldis Wright).
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