Saturday night I went to American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI (John Kerry actually prepped for his first debate at the resort nearby). For you non-Madison area kids, APT is this outdoor theatre that is incredible. I saw Julius Caesar, my favorite Shakespeare play. The following are the actual Director's Notes from the program:


"The medium of great playwrights is not words on paper, but language as it occurs in human listening. The only Shakespeare, Shaw, Sophocles, or Moliere we have are the words that they wrote - words written not to be read, but to be spoken and listened by a community of audience, actors, and backstage theatremakes. Human beings "listen" a play into existence at each once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated moment of "now".

Irrespective of costumes and setting, a play in the theatre is always taking place now. Although a production of a classic must not over-emphasize what is relevant to a particular moment in time lest it thereby obscure that which is timeless, it is nonetheless interesting to speculate on why Julius Caesar has been the most produced of Shakespeare’s plays during the past two years.

Imagine that the most powerful and wealthy nation in the history of the world is bitterly divided by the rise to power of a leader who is considered a hero by some and a tyrant by others.

Imagine that this leader come to power in a way that many people feel was undemocratic and illegitimate.

Imagine that this leader amasses more and more personal power, in many cases bypassing the representative branches of government and ignoring time-honored democratic processes, albeit in the service of what many consider to be the greater good.

Imagine that a collection of senior statesmen – some of whom are honorable men honestly believing that democracy is dangerously threatened by this leader, some of whom are merely envious or power-seeking – determine that this leader is a great threat to the nation and must be assassinated.
In the wake of this decision, imagine that heretofore unheard of natural disasters ensue; events that shock and frighten the populace, many of whom ascribe these strange natural events to God.

And, finally, imagine that when the conspirators fulfill on their plan and assassinate this leader, chaos reigns and the stability of the world is shattered.

So welcome to Julius Caesar that takes place in ancient Rome, right now. What we will hear in this performance has never been heard before and will never be heard again it is at once both timeless and only for right now."


-Noah