Julius Caesar and August Wilson

Friday was heavy duty theater!   We had lunch at one of the local breweries with two members of the cast of Shakespeare in Love, which we will see today, Saturday, and a friend of Jane's and Peter's on the OSF staff.   John had a huge gyro and Ben a huge salmon salad.  Home-made root beer that was surprisingly good.  No beer because we didn't want to miss any of the dialogue in the plays we were going to.

The first was Julius Caesar, which we think we had never actually seen before--at least on stage.   It was staged starkly with heavy mostly black costumes, save Caesar who wore white.   The palace intrigues, intricacies and mindsets of the assassination plotters was particularly notable in light of what we feel sure is happening in the White House today.   Clearly the play resonates today given the current years-long division of the American body politic. The last scene of continuing civil war required much thought about Roman politics from 2000 some years ago and, if it is at all prescient about our current situation, it does not bode well.

We had a lovely dinner outside at the Peerless Hotel in their garden.  Unlike a restaurant in Washington that had no cocktail onions a few weeks ago, Peerless provided John with a lovely Gibson.   The food was up to regular standards--John had spanakopita and Ben roasted salmon filet.  All eight of us shared two luscious desserts.

The evening performance, UniSon, was superb.  It's a world premiere here this summer.   It was developed and performed by Universes, a poetry, musical and dance group.  It's based on the poems of August Wilson, the famed African-American playwright of the Hill District in Pittsburgh.  Universes got permission from Wilson's widow to examine and use the poems found in Wilson's trunk that he wanted to be destroyed.  The piece was written in such a way as to distanc. itself from the biographical Wilson. It is a beautifully done impressionistic study of the agonies of mankind, the secrets we hold and how they can remain personal horrors.  Whether the events brought to life by a wonderful cast were actually part of Wilson's life or not, the imagination of the poems lives through the acting of seven players, Wilson's protegé, who has a starring role, and Wilson himself, who reappears after death when she opens the trunk of poetry she was supposed to destroy.   A must see if it goes on from here.