Largely Coming to Praise Updated ‘Caesar’ at City Hall

The wide steps and colonnaded portico on the west side of L.A’s City Hall make a brilliant backdrop for parts of Shakespeare Festival/LA’s intriguing staging of “Julius Caesar.”

Any government--imperial or democratic--strives to appear as solid as these Corinthian columns. Yet the architecture also conveys overweening pomp, which is apt for an examination of the human flaws that bring down mighty Caesar and his chief assailant, noble Brutus. City Hall’s current seismic renovation--evidenced by a temporary fence around much of the building--underlines the vulnerability of even the sturdiest of monuments.

The setting works magnificently for the arrival of Caesar, his assassination and Mark Antony’s closing lines. It’s not as close a fit for the more intimate scenes or the final battle--though huge projections behind the colonnade, and a red banner and swaying searchlights during the combat, help set the stage. The production’s later performances at South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes will use an original set. (The L.A. City College performance has been canceled.)

The biggest problem of the downtown venue, in which the audience seating spills off the sidewalk across a closed-off Spring Street, is the awkwardly artificial amplification that echoes occasionally. It sounds a bit ridiculous when, for example, the conspirators plot Caesar’s death at a volume that could be heard by thousands of their fellow Romans.

Even so, the miking can’t completely overcome the noise of nearby trucks, sirens and helicopters. And at Saturday’s performance, the mikes occasionally faltered. Even the most vehement declamation was subject to temporary disconnections.

Director Andrew Tsao, shrewdly seeking to maintain focus in this expansive space, eliminated intermissions and peripheral scenes, including the opening discussion among characters who never appear again.

He employed modern dress (designed by Elizabeth Hope Clancy), purple armbands--easily snatched off in a defiant gesture by rabid Cassius--and gun-toting soldiers to suggest a contemporary military dictatorship. The soothsayer is a hooded homeless woman. A poet uses rap rhythms. Brutus’ servant plays a boombox instead of a lyre. Incidental music includes rock for martial routines, opera for introspection and choral odes for the most momentous events, capped by a bracing gust of the Beatles’ “Revolution” for the curtain call.

The production includes scruffy TV news crews and TV monitors, but they aren’t as evident as they were in the Mark Taper Forum’s contemporary “Julius Caesar” in 1991. The post-assassination speeches are done traditionally, not as a news conference. Still, the TV monitors can distract, as when footage of real assassinations accompanies the onstage killing.

Even in death, this Caesar (Dakin Matthews) remains vital. His ghost, who appears only once in the text, emerges several times during the final scenes. He touches Brutus’ knee at one point and later gets the play’s final words, repeating a sentiment about inexorable death that Caesar had uttered while alive. Matthews, who earlier exuded arrogance as the living Caesar, plays the ghost calmly, almost reassuringly, very effectively.

Rif Hutton isn’t as overbearing as some Brutuses; he’s shocked almost into inaction by the gore of Caesar’s death. However, his temper flares against his wife. Only a servant’s arrival seems to prevent him from striking her.

Nike Doukas is an impassioned Portia, though she’s introduced by an inexplicable offstage laugh before her arrival. And it’s perverse to also cast her as the soldier who holds the sword when Brutus commits suicide. Tom Schanley’s Antony is a fine firebrand, who gets to cry out “let slip the dogs of war” twice (the unscripted time is during the final battle). Robert Pescovitz’s Cassius, though burdened with a pause that creates a sophomoric sexual innuendo during a key speech, is amusingly peevish.

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* “Julius Caesar,” Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring St. Wednesday-Sunday, 8:30 p.m.. Free or $25 preferred seats. (213) 489-4127. July 23-Aug. 2: South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes. Thursdays-Sundays, 8:30 p.m. $15. (310) 377-4316. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

Rif Hutton: Brutus

Dakin Matthews: Julius Caesar

Robert Pescovitz: Cassius

Tom Schanley: Mark Antony

Nike Doukas: Portia/Soothsayer/Strato

Alicia Wollerton: Calpurnia/Soothsayer/Octavius

Clive Rosengren: Casca

Victor Bun~o, Jim Eusterman, John Jabaley, Julius Tennon: Other Conspirators

Ryun Yu: Poet/Messenger

Marc Valera: Lucius

Nathan Krupa: Titinius

Stu Levin: Cicero

Tyler Lindsay: Messala

Carlos Madrid Mora: Pindarus/Caesar’s Servant

Thom Taylor: Lepidus

A Shakespeare Festival/LA production. By William Shakespeare. Directed by Andrew Tsao. Sets by Karen TenEyck. Costumes by Elizabeth Hope Clancy. Lights by Bob Howell. Sound by Juvencio Segura. Fight director Randy Kovitz. Production stage manager Christy Weikel.