‘If you have tears, prepare to shed them’: A Review of ‘Julius Caesar’ (2011)

Intense, rhythmic and methodical — all words that describe Shakespeare In Paradise’s 2011 signature performance, Julius Caesar.

After working front of house for Julius Caesar over three days and catching bits and pieces of the show, I sat down to watch it on its final night.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them.”

SiP’s signature play was directed by Bahamian legend, Philip Burrows. Burrow’s show was perhaps the best show I saw during the festival. Some say it was boring, apparently falling asleep even. I disagree.

He slashed Shakespeare’s original script to ribbons, axing scenes, monologues, characters — by god, you name it, Philip ‘Sweeny Todded’ it.

The show is two and a half hours long with intermission, but I didn’t want to leave the theater after the show — I wanted more.

Many have walked away from The Tempest (2009) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2010) amazed by the set. Some claim that that was all they remembered of the show. Well, Caesar only had a black set of stairs and the character’s costumes (which were in earth tones), so what were they going to walk away with this year?

The play apparently.

It was intense, never letting up the tension, drama and death. Most plays I’ve seen have a hard time balancing tension. Either plays are too tense with no room to breathe or they are too comical with no overall point to the madnesss. Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” can easily suffer from too much tension — it is after all, about betrayal, suicide and politics — but it doesn’t and Burrows did a good job balancing this on stage.

Perhaps one of his more risky moves was to incorporate Bob Marley’s music in his show. I felt that it paid off as the songs he chose fit in perfectly in the play. I spoke to a few others who saw the show and they felt that it didn’t fit in the overall setting of the play, and it is a valid point. However, I felt the music set the atmosphere perfectly.

The actors did a fantastic job bringing to life these hundred-year-old characters. I’ve seen too few a Bahamian actress like Jovanna Hepburn (Cassius). To say she stole the show sounds almost cliché to me, but she did. Hepburn was phenomenal. She convinced me, held me and threw me against the wall — all with her lines. I had people asking me from the first performance what her name was. For her part, she really brought her character to life — as did all of the other actors.

Matthew Wildgoose continues to mature as an actor. As Mark Antony, he excelled, never allowing his comic genius to emerge. Antony, in this play, is a calculating, decisive and serious character. Wildgoose did an excellent job.

David Burrows was fantastic. As Brutus he served as an excellent companion to Hepburn’s Cassius. Their intensity was brutal and a scene with the pair always promised earth shattering exchanges.

Gordon Mills was perhaps the actor who I felt played Caesar a bit too light heartedly. When I think of Caesar, I think of the ruler that conquered the Ghals and left his enemies begging for mercy. The man was prone to genocidal tendencies after all. One can argue that Mills’ portrayal made him more sympathetic when he died, but I would have preferred a more serious Caesar.

The rest of the cast did a fantastic job and I was quite pleased to see many new faces to the Shakespeare In Paradise scene.

This review first appeared in The Nassau Guardian on October 28th, 2011.

Review: Mariah Brown (2011)

Mariah Brown is not a play that can please a wide range of audiences. Those who are used to big explosions, raunchy sex scenes and hollow protagonists will find no pleasure in this one-woman play out of Florida. Instead, Brown offers a satisfying historical and emotional view of a Bahamian migrant who pioneered Key West’s Coconut Grove in the early 1880s.

That’s right, Shakespeare In Paradise presents yet another one-man show from the United States, following last year’s “Paul Robeson” and 2009’s “Zora”. I might also add that audiences loved those performances. So it is no small wonder that “Mariah Brown” quietly pleases audiences this lap. I say quietly because Brown is no showstopper about a suspected communist or the great Zora Neale Hurston, but rather, focuses on a mammy — a good natured servant — in search of a better life.

This is where Brown shines, as Laverne Cuzzocrea (Mariah Brown) transplants audiences back to the early 1880s and delivers one of the most memorable performances I’ve seen in any recent play. Cuzzocrea breaks down her performance with direct contact with the audience and exerting raw emotion. Her performance is quiet yet boisterous.

Central to the story was Brown’s hope and fortitude in learning to read and write. There is such a similarity here with Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”. Learning to read is intrinsically linked with education and social awareness and this proves true as Brown warns her daughters of the ‘killings’ occurring in Florida.

She also finds an appreciation of poetry, especially the works of Walt Whitman and Shakespeare. Brown’s love for words, letters, reading and writing is ironically opposed to the blindness that her husband suffers. It is almost as if the playwright weakens the patriarch to truly reveal the strength that Brown possess.

Perhaps the most important theme of the play is community development. Brown was a pioneer, building the first home in Coconut Grove and persuading others to join her settlement. Here she shines not only as a mammy archetype, but also as a new archetype, earth mother. Brown cares for her community, especially her boss in the Peacock Inn who helps her to read. These elements, in my opinion, made the script fantastic.

There were no physically technical aspects to the play: no music, lights or fancy robots. It was simple. Cuzzocrea wore a traditional dress fitting that of a servant. For the most part, this worked well for the play, as the simplicity of the dress stayed in line with the atmosphere of the performance and the script. The greatest alien element to the play was the venue — The Historical Society — that fits nicely with the historical aspects of the play.

I honestly I have no qualms with the play. It was the right length, proved to be highly educational and it followed the three unities of playwriting; time, place and action. It didn’t hurt that Cuzzocrea was fantastic as Brown. I mean she had the audience.

Writer and director Sandra Riley first staged Mariah Brown in 2003 and followed with two additional performances in 2004 and 2007.

This was the first time Mariah Brown was staged in The Bahamas.

This review first appeared in The Nassau Guardian on October 10th 2011