Godot and Caesar in London, October 2024
Godot was good.
A top central London theatre — the Haymarket.
Top actors.
The play was staged on what appeared to be an asteroid, but apart from that, it was true to Beckett’s instructions.
Julius Caesar at Southwark Playhouse was the first attempt at contemporising a Shakespeare I’ve seen that I’ve enjoyed.
I didn’t like the way the Globe Theatre did Othello six months ago. They tried to make it contemporary, including food delivery bikers with fluorescent backpacks. The dialogue didn’t fit the action.
A less famous theatre, the Southwark Playhouse at the Borough, aced Julius Caesar. The words of the play were shown as giant WhatsApp comments.
Old Bill invented many of our everyday phrases: https://www.yourdictionary.com/.../shakespeare-words-phrases
The light show/film projection was spectacular. Half of the play was film, and half real people. Sometimes five small movies spoke to one real actor, and sometimes, vice-versa. The music was good too.
Beckett left instructions that his characters must be played by actors of the correct sex — but Shakespeare didn’t. The Southwark people gave several male roles to women.
I was the only one who laughed at Portia saying
Think you I am no stronger than my sex, being so fathered and so husbanded?
to Lady Brutus — they changed the pronouns to fit the changed sex, and
Brutus is an honourable Roman
etc..
I don’t think this has any deeper meaning than “women can play any of Shakespeare’s major roles.”
And they did. I’ve seen several attempts to add the modern world to Shakespeare This one worked.
