The Play
Skinner, R. Dana
The Players Give Julius Caesar IT IS one of the curiosities, of America that cities other than New York have probably seen Shakespeare's Julius Caesar far more frequently than the supposed...
...Geddes has built nearly all of his effects around a few columns so lighted and arranged as to give an unmistakably authentic mood without the least effort at popular realism...
...Yet he knows thoroughly well the importance of the mob to the course of human events...
...There is thus an interesting mixture of the trained and the untrained Shakespeareans...
...As a matter of fact, Julius Caesar, when well presented, can be a much finer and more stirring play than the average school-boy, forced to dissect its noble verses, would admit...
...Without detracting in the least from the excellent work of James Rennie as Mark Antony, it is safe to say that it is John Craig's mob which gives the burial scene of Caesar its amazing sweep and drama...
...Marion Coakley's Calpurnia is a vision of beauty, but vocally rather deficient, her voice running too far and too lightly up and down the scale...
...Power and Courtleigh...
...He is probably the last man one would suspect of having Shakespearean talent, yet he comes out of the ordeal quite triumphantly...
...Rathbone has had far more Shakespearean training than Mr...
...His gestures and movements, too, are angular and without repose...
...There is dignity and sweep to Mr...
...It goes without saying that these men lend an importance to their brief scenes never felt in the average Shakespearean company assmbled for the benefit of one or two stars...
...In the present revival by The Players, there are many moments when it seems to catch the full breath of life and to hold forth a rumor of how truly great it might be in the hands of some director genius...
...Rennie, it is the latter's work which would lend the real magic of drama to the play...
...Unfortunately one cannot say as much for Basil Rathbone as Cassius, although I suspect that Mr...
...The cast assembled for this occasion is a rather imposing one, although it includes many names furthest from general association with Shakespeare—notably Basil Rathbone as Cassius, James Rennie as Mark Antony, and Marion Coakley as Calpurnia...
...Rathbone is too young for the part, and takes no trouble to lend himself a believable age...
...His excellent voice enables him to give his lines naturally and without intoning...
...Power succeeds in turning all his speeches into monotonous and funereal utterances...
...Rathbone's...
...And thus we have, in all, a very mixed performance, but one of amazing vitality once the handicaps have been discounted...
...First of all in distinction come the settings by Norman Bel Geddes...
...John Craig has sensed this keenly and has put a life and vitality and movement into the mob scenes which reach, and convey to the audience, an intense excitement...
...Even while belittling the popular mind, he exalts the popular power...
...The direction of the mob scenes by John Craig also has a touch of genius...
...Courtleigh, on the other hand, lends variety to his words, giving them a rhythm and grace and sparkle which sustain the feeling of action and drama...
...Thus the mob plays an overwhelmingly dramatic part in Julius Caesar...
...In the first place, Mr...
...It would be unfair to refer to Mr...
...Courtleigh is above reproach, dignified, supple and replete with authority...
...Its failures are those occasioned by the nature of the revival itself—the comparatively short time allowed for rehearsals, and the necessity of throwing together a cast from those members of the profession who happened to have an available free week...
...He bears up surprisingly well, even when competing with the carefully trained voices of Messrs...
...The same is true of the individuals composing John Craig's mob...
...His is the outstanding performance of the present revival...
...And over and above this surface accomplishment, he brings to the part a truly thrilling energy and reserve force...
...He would, to my mind, have made a far better Brutus than Tyrone Power, who manages somehow to portray Brutus in the dullest of terms—a man in whose struggle and fate no one could possibly take a keen emotional interest...
...The work of Mr...
...His sheer virility and earnestness more than compensate for the roughness of his method...
...Rennie's work, but none to Mr...
...To balance this we have William Courtleigh as Caesar, Tyrone Power as Brutus, and Mary Young as Portia...
...He has attempted nothing bizarre, nothing so ultra-modern, for example, that it professes to reflect the mood of the characters by twisted or distorted walls...
...We must insist, however, that this mythical cast include James Rennie...
...The minor parts, as usual in a Players revival, are all taken by noted actors, including James T. Powers as the cobbler, and Pedro de Cordoba, Joseph Kilgour and others as the conspirators...
...For this we have to thank the devotion of Mr...
...Robert Mantell, who has so often included this classic in the repertory of his touring company...
...But he has taken the best of modern knowledge of line, mass and lighting, and produced a blended result that heightens the drama without needless distraction—an altogether admirable bit of stagecraft...
...Mary Eaton, of Ziegfeld Follies fame, gives a quite delightful performance as Brutus' page, Lucius...
...She has grace and charm and a truly lovely diction...
...Not that he succeeds completely in bringing his husky and somewhat twangy accents under full control...
...Then, in a mistaken attempt to modernize the feeling of his lines, he only succeeds in making them jerky and petulant...
...His burial oration brought new values to those hackneyed words and made them ring with the full conviction of triumph...
...Rennie...
...If one had to choose between the vocal perfection of the trained Shakespearean and the acting integrity of Mr...
...There are moments when his r's have an all too generous burr...
...That would hardly be in keeping with the rather grave and classic approach expected of The Players...
...He is no fit protagonist for Brutus, and for this reason many of the scenes between the two men, particularly the famous quarrel scene in the tent, lose most of their dramatic significance...
...The real surprise of the occasion is James Rennie...
...The Players Give Julius Caesar IT IS one of the curiosities, of America that cities other than New York have probably seen Shakespeare's Julius Caesar far more frequently than the supposed metropolis of art itself...
...He might be Caesar's son, but never his contemporary—one who could have carried him from the waves of Tiber and afford t<^ boast of it...
...Shakespeare probably never vented his spleen so completely as in his ridicule of the psychology of mobs in this play...
...They enhance the mob feeling through the very individuality of their portrayals—a common stage paradox...
...Power's method as "old school," because, whatever its faults of overstatement, the oldschool method called for fire and vigor and emotional contrast...
...But his achievement must be measured in positive rather than negative terms...
...This deprives him of all illusion of authority...
...In the short women's parts, it is, of course, Mary Young as Portia who gives the most completely satisfying performance...
...With his usual flare for telling simplicity, Mr...
...It only remains now for some farseeing director to assemble a capable all-round cast and to let us see just how fine Shakespeare can be when divorced from the idea of a star vehicle...
...He shows them as the most imbecile of sheep, utterly at the mercy of clever speech and dominant personality, and unleavened even by that quiet cynicism which we observe occasionally in modern times...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 7
