THEATRE REVIEW

JUNE 2026 | Volume 264

 

Julius Caesar is not one of Shakespeare’s best plays, although it has a lot of great lines, a couple of powerful scenes and one of Shakespeare’s very best speeches. I understand and appreciate the impulse behind this Far from the Tree production, directed by Shel Wyminga.A play about political violence and a man who would be king has a lot of resonance in the Trumpian age.

Wymingahas done gender-blind casting, put her actors in modern dress, and has the Soothsayer (Michael Briganti) play guitar and sing folk ballads. Her twelveperformersshow great commitment to their passionate advocacy of one side or the other, the pro- and anti-Caesar parties, and to their battles, including rousing sword fights on the tiny Nest stage. But there’s no avoiding the relentless talkiness of Shakespeare’s script.

The play’s first half has the most powerful action despite its focus on Brutus (Joelle Wyminga), a Hamlet-like figure who can’t make up her mind whether to join the conspirators and assassinate Caesar (Sam Jeffery) or not. Cassius (David Robert Leslie), the conspiracy’s leader, talks Brutus’ ear off trying to recruit her, and Brutus does a lot of rationalizing, including with her spouse, Portia (Andres Collantes).

But Caesar has ambition and momentum.Despite the Soothsayer’s warning her to beware the ides of March, she ignores the entreaties of her spouse, Calphurnis (NazaninShoja), and walks into the trap at the Senate. That’s a truly dynamic, terrifying scene. As the conspirators converge on Caesar with their knives, this Caesar fights back, managing to take down two or three before her own bloody death. Jeffery’s Caesar gives the strongest performance in the play.

Then follows the famous, brilliant “Friends, Romans, countrymen” eulogy for Caesar by Mark Antony (the excellent Shel Wyminga). Cassius has warned Brutus to take out Mark Antony along with Caesar, but Brutus shows his strategic weakness in refusing. Brutus, who in this production is frequently reading, makes a rational appeal to the people in his oration, but it’s no match for Mark Antony’s rhetorical brilliance and strong emotional hooks. Her constant, withering description of the conspirators as “honorable men” turns the tables completely and begins the civil war that takes up the entire second half of the play.

There, characters are either talking or fighting. Cassius’ and Brutus’ alliance almost collapses in argument. They ultimately face defeat at the Battle of Philippi because Shakespeare’s one iron-bound rule is that you NEVER kill a king or head of state. On the other side Mark Antony can hardly disguise her distaste for her major ally, Octavius Caesar (Vanessa Lazare).

The ending clearly, chillingly punctuates the theme of the production when Octavius assumes Caesar’s mantle and leads her followers in a chant of “Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!”

The king is dead, long live the king.

 

 

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