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Presented by Theatrum Pompeii
In a world of marble slabs, shag carpet, bling and flamboyant personae; Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar gets an industrial hip-hop reinvention. With lyrics by Nam Nguyen and music by Chernilo (Maksym Chupov-Ryabtsev), Caezus is a visual and auditory spectacle.
The work is lyrically dense, but I missed out on much of the wordplay. Regrettably, a tech glitch disabled the closed captioning for the opening performance I attended. What I caught, though, resonated.
Julius Caesar (Shawn Lall) is a rapper here, loved by many, though a cabal of covert haters seek to take him out of the picture. Too much power shouldn’t be held by a single individual, even if he’s got all the right moves.
Though I was often straining to pick up what they were putting down, the cast is so emotive and electric, I could vibe my way through. A familiarity with the source material helps too. Nguyen has borrowed a little from Antony and Cleopatra as the Egyptian monarch figures into the story. A stunning threesome between herself, Caesar and Mark Antony (THAT BODY) was a highlight for me.
Overall, director Lexi X’s production has a palpable sensuality. Even Ceasar’s murder has a distinctive eroticism that thrilled me. We end here on Mark Antony’s discovery of the dead Ceasar and his stirring “let slip the dogs of war” declaration. This finale—DOGS OF WAR—performed by Jacob Levitt’s Antony, is, for me, the most exhilarating segment.
The entire ensemble—Lall (Caesar), Levitt (Mark Antony), Jason Chung (Brutus), Martin Gomes (Cassius) Sumeeta Farrukh (Cleopatra) and Yasmine Shelton (Alexander the Great / Soothsayer)—is charismatic. With pulsating, hypnotic momentum, they propel us through and end on a surge of violent, cathartic energy.