On Opening Night

[danieldwilliam]

Julius Caesar opened last night. It went well. I’m pleased. We and I got some nice feedback. I’m particularly pleased with the two scenes where I kill someone.

I think most of the cast managed a top five performance on the night and nobody had a below par night.  I think now we’ve had the opening night out of the way we can loosen up a bit and give it some welly. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights should be cracking.

Julius Caesar is an interesting play. Obviously very political. I’ve been reminded of Aristotle’s Politics.

I’ve enjoyed watching the directing process. I like working with the director very much. She has a happy knack of keeping everyone focused and disciplined without seeming authoritarian. She also has a nice eye for bits of detail.

The actress playing my on stage buddy has been immense. It’s her first time on the stage since primary school but she’s been Assistant Director on a few of the Grads’ shows so she is very professional. She’s also been really good at looking after the kids who are in the show. It’s been lovely working with her.

I think I’ll have a shot at the one act play festival next year which is the Grads traditional route into directing full plays.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Great news, and well done to all of you. Enjoy your weekend run! :-)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I was just thinking it's a bit of shame there isn't a third Shakespeare play with Octavius in it - one during the principate.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Ah, well that is all part of a much wider tradition of the story of Augustus the mature emperor just not really working for modern western audiences. He's quite popular in the medieval period (especially in stories about the birth of Christ), but from about Shakespeare's time onwards he really drops off the radar, because stories about a man who replaced a nominally open system of government with an autocracy and was widely congratulated for it aren't what people want to hear any more.

If you want to read my Grate Thorts on why people aren't very interested in telling Augustus' story in more detail, see the second article down on this page. The focus there is on screen portrayals, so it doesn't look at the Shakespearean period in detail, but you can very much see the beginnings of the same thought-world which I discuss in the paper in Shakespeare's characterisation of 'Octavian the villain' in Antony and Cleopatra. That has really stuck, and is still the preferred way of telling his story today.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Cheers – I’ll have a look at that.

Shakespeare took on a number of tyrants or usurpers in his plays, Richard III and Macbeth for example, but I notice that they don’t flourish and that they typically aren’t seen as usurping a democracy but rather are illegitimate kings rather than legitimate kings. Which if you were an Elizabethan or Jacobean playwright would be a prudent position to take.