Rome Twice in a Day

This morning I was in the fair city of Rome in the company of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck on a “Roman Holiday”, which was delightful. This evening at RSC Stratford watching Julius Caesar ( in Rome) which was definitely not delightful!

Number 8 had a one off screening of Roman Holiday so a friend and I who’d both never seen it took ourselves off. What a treat. We then went out for lunch.
Later the OH and I headed off to Stratford for dinner and to watch JC which we’d never seen.
It’s a very odd staging: lots of modern interpretive dance, wailing , video screens and the now expected gender blind casting. Caesar is a man but both Brutus and Cassius played by young women..None of which I mind if they have the power to convince us they have gravitas, which this cast didn’t really. And the dancing didn’t add anything…

The assassination is represented by the senators smearing Caesar in black paint, which in turn ended up all over the stage as he writhed.
In the interval the stage was mopped and dried, and we started the second half, until suddenly 10 minutes in , a man came on with a mop and bucket to tell us all to stay in our seats and the actors left. . Then a team of moppers came back and began attacking the stage again this time with real gusto!
For a few minutes one did wonder if it was part of the staging, but as the muttering loudened it became clear it wasn’t! A stage manager came on and said we’d have a further 10 minute break- presumably whilst the stage dried. A lot of people , including school parties on a time line left then.
We discussed leaving but decided to sit it out. All in all the gap lasted 30 minutes, and then finally the SM came on and apologised, safety of the artists, blah blah blah and that the final 30 minutes of acting would be modified so no one was injured… … so consequently the battle scenes were a bit of a damp squib. We left feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

I realise it was only the second night, they haven’t had the press night so will be interesting to see the critics thoughts. Even without the interruption I wasn’t blown away! But they need to sort the situation with the slippery stage out pronto!