If you live anywhere near NYC, you might want to catch an altogether amazing production of Julius Caesar before it leaves Brooklyn after this weekend. This is a production by the famed Donmar Warehouse that takes place at St. Ann's Warehouse.
The construct of this production is that it takes place in a prison. All are women prisoners who decide to perform a production of the famed Shakespearean play. The New York Times called the show "gender-bending" but that is not actually accurate. When I directed women in prison, they played male characters and were superb. I attributed this to the fact that women spend so much time watching men than it is not all that difficult to portray them. The women here also superbly step into the shoes of Caesar and his followers and yet there is a sense always that they are playing characters who have so much more power than they do.
Women playing men who have the power. That is the key since women behind bars have so little power and in the raw violence, the grey of the prison and the dramatic singing and need to transcend prison walls the play is always the vehicle.
Some of the best moments in this production directed by Phillyda Lloyd, take place when the audience sees the disjunction between prisoner and play. A woman gets a visit and the actresses break with curses and fury, not wanting to lose their fellow cast member even for a few minutes of the show, a show one imagines will continue on and on since it is the life of women. We discover that Caesar is not the prisoner we thought she was at the end of the play when she unzips her prison garb to reveal a guard's clean white shirt and tie — these are Brits mind you. It is an unexpected stunning moment.
Likewise, one of the least successful is the herding in of audience members by guards. It feels much more cliché than any other moment. But it is a rarity in a production that truly examines power.The play is 100% clear and even if you forgot your Caesar you get every word, every tension. The actors are physical and the set a warehouse at its best with upper levels and a dimly lit world to jump and descend to
The women in this play impressed me as actors but what I came away with most is how Shakespeare relates so much to the experience of incarcerated persons. This is why so many of us work with prisoners to put on Shakespeare. A reminder once again that universality is not just a word
Shoutout to upcoming Shakespeare in Prison conference next weekend, November 15th-17th.