Review of Babes with Blades' Julius Caesar

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Julius Caesar. This was not any old Julius Caesar. If you are a girl, like I am, you are about to have a really awesome thing happen. This Julius Caesar was ALL GIRLS! (I'm waiting for your applause.) Also, boys, if you are excited, I am happy for you. All these girls get to do Shakespeare together, and this is a show where they can say "Girls can do Shakespeare by themselves." So, here is a little history lesson for you. Shakespeare was alive during the Renaissance period. Babes with Blades is doing the exact opposite of what they did in the Renaissance in England--which was that all the actors were boys! Even the girls' parts were played by boys! I hope you've got that in your minds. It is important if you are a Shakespeare nerd. Julius Caesar is about these friends who want to kill Julius Caesar (Maureen Yasko) because he wants to have more power than he's supposed to. Then it is about how to get out of people being angry at them for killing Julius Caesar.

There was this really funny scene where Casca (Alison Dornheggen) was telling Brutus (Kimberly Logan) and Cassius (Sara Gorsky) what had happened with Caesar and how he kept refusing the crown. One of my favorite parts of this scene was when she said "Oh, I can't tell you anymore" and then she used her fingers to say "Come closer, I'll tell you more." I thought that was really funny because she was doing exactly the opposite of what she said she was going to do. And then she was also afraid of the rain, so she was kind of the scaredy cat character. And Cassius says, "don't be afraid of the rain; just go out in it." And that is when she decides, "Ok, I am going to come and kill Caesar with you."

There is one scene where Caesar's wife, Calphurnia (Aila Peck) says "Caesar, you cannot go to the senate today" because he is going to get killed is what she thinks because of her dream. And then he listened to her and then Caesar said "Yes, I'm going to stay home for you," and then his wife was very happy. And then Metellus Cimber (Kalina McCreery) says, "That dream is a good sign," and that happens to be one of the people who is going to kill Caesar! It shows you that Metellus really really wants to free his country. I think that when Caesar says, "I'm going to do this for you" to his wife and then he says, "No I'm actually not because this other guy says it is actually fine" it made me hate him even more. It makes you think that Calphurnia is like a fortune teller, and I think that is awesome to have a fortune teller wife.

After they have killed Caesar, in the same scene where they have killed Caesar, Mark Antony (Diana Coates) comes in. Mark Antony is on Caesar's side. He comes over to everybody and says, "I will shake your bloody hands and I am not angry with you," even though he is very angry with them. This is how you can tell he is angry with them: because he says he is not going to say anything mean about them in his speech, and then he says a lot of mean stuff and they say they are going to go and burn Brutus's house. He says "This is Caesar's friend Brutus's stab and this is how big it was and you should go kill him." He starts his speech in a nice way and says that "Brutus is an honorable man." But then after Brutus is totally out of earshot, he starts saying all this mean stuff about them. So honorable, a word that usually means very good, has now turned into a word that means, "I hate you very badly and I really want to burn down your house." I think the woman who played Antony was amazing. She did a great job in making me really think at first that she really thought Brutus was an honorable man. And that is the whole trick of things.

There is a scene where Cassius and Brutus have an argument about how Brutus wanted money from Cassius and Cassius didn't want to give it to him. They have a really big fight, but not a fight with swords or guns or poison or any kind of thing that would hurt each other. They are having a mouth fight and then it really shows that they said that they were brothers, and brothers have fights as well. It is hard when your friend wants something and you don't really want to give it to them, even though they're your friend. Brutus has this certain soldier, Lucius (Ashley Fox), and he really likes him, and I think that is why he wants the money--so he can pay Lucius. And for this war he asked Lucius go out and he got badly hurt, and he loved Lucius a lot, even though he was basically his servant.

One of my favorite scenes was the big battle because I am a big battle fan but not a big bloody battle fan and this didn't have any blood in it, so I liked that. I like stabbing in plays but not in real life. I don't really like it when there is fake blood because sometimes fake blood can look very realistic even though it is usually just corn syrup and food coloring. All the fighting, choreographed by Libby Beyreis, was so amazing. All of them (including Catherine Dvorak, Kim Fukawa, and Jennifer Mickelson) were so in time with each other. All of them seemed like they were actually fighting and they were determined to win this battle.

People who would like this show are people who like Shakespeare, Rome, and women fighting. People should go and see this show because it is funny, you will love all the actors, and it has really good fights. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, go and see this play. It is very good!


Photos: Steven Townshend