All Hail Caesar, "King" of Romans!

Cai Weiss as Casca (left) and Natalie Ottman as Cassius (right) in Julius Caesar at First Stage Young Company. Photo credit: Paul Ruffolo.

A review of Julius Caesar

by Benjamin Earnest, age 13

Julius Caesar, a well-known history by William Shakespeare, is a play that talks about the life of its titular historical figure and the effect his death had on the Roman Republic. This production, performed by First Stage's Young Company, shows how the conspirators who fought against Caesar are the cause of both his death and chaos throughout Rome. The plot mostly follows Cassius and Brutus, who are the leaders of this event, and the other conspirators who join the cause to bring down Caesar. And as Act Three begins, this play’s most well-known scene occurs, which is the assassination of Caesar. But, as is often the case in history, major rebellion occurs after a leader’s demise, with Marc Antony and Octavius waging a civil war against the people behind Caesar’s death. Some skills that the show displayed were meaningful messages and acting skills, special effects, and historical portrayal.

Something that is worth pointing out is these actors’ capabilities to deliver long lines of dialogue, all with a clear purpose, carrying whatever they said into the next scene. Some actors who really took over their characters were Natalie Ottman and Ben Nowacek, as Cassius and Brutus, who, in their assassination plan, brought their characters’ brother and sister dynamic to that appropriate level that matched the time period. Later in the show, they also showed how both of them could influence their armies to fight against Marc Antony and the rest of the country during the civil war. Another character whose growth was pretty interesting to follow throughout the show was Marc Antony, portrayed by Paxton Haley, because of the way that she showed the change from being just Caesar’s friend to leading the uprising of Rome.

The special effects in this show also helped a lot to set up the mood and tone of the scenes. For example, the night where Brutus and Cassius start the idea of taking a stand against Caesar, the lighting (coordinated by Marion Frank) and sound (coordinated by Martilia Marechal) set how deep into the night it was, and created a gloomy, rainy atmosphere. These effects also helped to change the setting, bringing the audience somewhere completely different in just two seconds. The other thing I would like to mention is how the show used small sound cues to show what events were taking place offstage, like when crowds would cheer for Caesar, or to amplify the actors’ voices during their ad-libs.

Something that First Stage does in all their shows that is different from other places is their Q&As, where they allow the audience to ask questions about how the show was put together and the actors can inform us about their process. Something that they mentioned at the performance I saw was how, since most of their characters are historically real, they were able to do research about their characters to get a better understanding of how to portray them in a show. 

Also, as we perform Shakespeare’s plays in our modern time, it is sometimes hard to make what he wrote clear for the audience to understand what’s happening. At the start of the show, I found it hard to know what they were trying to convey, but then gradually their large expressions helped me understand, and I could tell they were doing an amazing job at performing the historical play.

All in all, Young Company’s portrayal of this Shakespeare classic was a very well-directed play for these young performers (directed by Ken Miller). See more like this from First Stage's Young Company.