Julius Caesar Variety Show theatre review: Tacky, unsubtle hysteria
An unruly Julius Caesar audition quickly erupts into a jumble of blunt melodramatics and visceral violence
We are in a Dublin theatre, watching three disparate wannabes audition for a low-budget Julius Caesar. This might be the starting point for a sitcom were it not for the chanting of protesters outside, the mob having got wind that the condemned building is to be turned into housing for refugees. You’d have thought the creative space would be a cocoon of safety, but the show’s ‘maverick’ (read, monstrous) director (played by Ultan Pringle) has a working method that involves literally setting his actors at each other’s throats, unleashing their own latent racism and misogyny.
Playwright and director Joy Nesbitt raises an interesting idea here about the abuses and prejudice that can hide in plain sight in a liberal, arty milieu, but the execution is too much on the nose. The idea that nasty power dynamics should no longer be tolerated in a rehearsal room is by now incontrovertible, and simply depicting bad behaviour from the off leaves the material looking crass and gratuitous rather than subtle and suspenseful. There are some amusing flourishes, courtesy of the deadpan piano accompanist Conrad Jones Brangan, but the play’s final descent into melodramatic bloodletting is totally cringeworthy.
Julius Caesar Variety Show, Summerhall, until 31 August, 4.45pm; picture: Simon Lazewski.