| . | 03/12/2008
Conversations in Tusculum
By: Victor Gluck
Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn and David Strathairn
(photo credit: Michal Daniel)
“Not what will we be, this country, but rather only what have we become.” “Righteous indignation will triumph! …. Maybe not.” “People will say, enough is enough. … And we’ll start to put our country back together. The way it should be. The way it’s meant to be.” “What if there is nothing left to preserve? What if while we sit here – they continue, as they have, inch by inch, brick by brick, to take apart everything?” “There’s talk he’s not done fighting yet. … We’ll never stop. That’s the kind of country we now find we live in.” “It not me who has given up on my country, it’s my country that has given up on me.” “War, he says … We need a war to keep us focused.”
Contemporary remarks? No, these are assorted lines from the Public Theater’s world premiere of Conversations in Tusculum. Richard Nelson’s allegorical new play parallels the events prior to the assassination of Julius Caesar with the political climate today. Just like the recent revivals of Aeschylus’ The Persians, this is an attempt to discuss the contemporary abuses of power by using historical lessons. The star-studded cast which includes Brain Dennehy as the philosopher Cicero, Aidan Quinn as soldier-statesman Brutus, “the noblest Roman of them all,” according to Shakespeare, David Strathairn as his brother-in-law, Cassius, another soldier–statesman, and Joe Grifasi as the actor Syrus has drawn much attention to the play.
Unfortunately, the title tells it all. These men meet at their country homes outside of a Rome dominated by power-hungry Caesar to discuss their discontent about the state of their republic. In a series of conversations in differing combinations, the men, along with Brutus’ wife and mother, attempt to analyze the future of the republic and what they can still do about it in the face of a leader who is dismantling all they hold dear.
The play is simply talk, and not particularly riveting talk. As drama, the play is flabby where it needs to be robust and muscular. The first dramatic, confrontation scene does come occur until one hour into the play. Conversations in Tusculum does not work at all unless the viewer knows Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to which it is a kind of thoroughly researched prequel. However, where Shakespeare has written an exciting play which dramatizes key historical events, the new play has no action but offers a series of personalized debates which are intended as a faintly veiled allegory of our times: the Bush administration’s policies, the war in the Middle East, the state of domestic affairs. Although the author’s intentions are admirable, his dramaturgy is weak and the play never catches fire.
The play is performed in contemporary dress but Susan Hilferty’s costumes are so bland that it is easy to forget the attempt to draw the parallel between Imperial Rome and today. In directing his own play, Nelson has kept the staging as low-key as the writing, an unfortunate choice. The play is written in a kind of shorthand that leaves out a great deal of information, giving the performers much less material in which to sink their acting teeth. Dennehy as Cicero, grieving for the death of his daughter as well as the future of the state, creates a believable elder statesman citizen without being very persuasive. Quinn has gained heft and resonance since he appeared on Broadway as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, making the serious-minded Brutus a conflicted yet ironic character. However, he is unable to make him the play’s focal point as Brutus needs to be. Strathairn as the self-effacing Cassius, described here as losing weight, rather than having “a lean and hungry look” as Shakespeare tells us, is surprisingly ineffectual. In previous stage roles, Strathairn has performed wonders with such understated roles.
The other characters are both underwritten and put in so little stage time as to have a minor impact on the debate. Maria Tucci is effective in her one scene as Brutus’ strong-willed mother and persona non grata, Caesar’s former lover, who has earlier agreed to send her daughter Junia, Cassius’ wife, to Caesar. Gloria Reuben, last seen at the Public as Condoleezza Rice in David Hare’s Stuff Happens in 2006, is an enigma as Porcia, Brutus’s new wife and the grieving daughter of Cato, who having sided with Pompey has recently committed suicide in order not to be captured by Caesar. Grifasi’s role is simply to speak two monologues written by Brutus to present his friends with his changing point of view. Thomas Lynch’s minimal setting with a few stools, benches and curtains allows for a smooth transition between the eight scenes, but intentionally fails to create any period atmosphere.
Although Richard Nelson has written many historical plays before such as Columbus and the Discovery of America, Two Shakespearean Actors, and The General from America, his new play fails to bring to life what might have been a rousing study of the philosophical and political turmoil leading up to Caesar’s elimination. While Conversations in Tusculum poses the right questions for our time, it fails to allow such accomplished actors as Brian Dennehy, David Strathairn, Aidan Quinn and Maria Tucci to breathe life into some fascinating historical characters.
Conversations in Tusculum (though March 30)
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-967-7555 or http://publictheater.org
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