Question

The reviewer decides not to point out any faults in this production because...

it would be too trivial

there are too many faults

it would displease the director

there are no faults

Answer 1

Directions: Read the following selection, which is a review of a performance of the play Julius Caesar. Then, read and respond to the question that follows. Julius Caesar in an Absorbing Production from The New York Post by John Mason Brown, November 12, 1937: This is no funeral oration such as Miss Bankhead and Mr. Tearle forced me to deliver yesterday when they interred Antony and Cleopatra. I come to praise Caesar at the Mercury, not to bury it. Of all the many new plays and productions the season has so far revealed, this modern-dress version of the mob mischief and demagoguery which can follow the assassination of a dictator is by all odds the most exciting, the most imaginative, the most topical, the most awesome, and the most absorbing. The astonishing, all-impressive virtue of Mr. Welles’s Julius Caesar is that, magnificent as it is as theater, it is far larger than its medium. Something deathless and dangerous in the world sweeps past you down the darkened aisles at the Mercury and takes possession of the proud, gaunt stage... It is an ageless warning, made in such arresting terms that it not only gives a new vitality to an ancient story but unrolls in your mind’s eye a map of the world which is increasingly splotched with sickening colors. Mr. Welles does not dress his conspirators and his Storm Troopers in Black Shirts or in Brown. He does not have to. The antique Rome, which we had thought was securely Roman in Shakespeare’s tragedy, he shows us to be a dateless state of mind... To an extent no other director in our day and country has equaled, Mr. Welles proves in his production that Shakespeare was indeed not of an age but for all time. After this surly modern Caesar, dressed in a green uniform and scowling behind the mask-like face of a contemporary dictator, has fallen at the Mercury and new mischief is afoot, we cannot but shudder before the prophet’s wisdom of those lines which read: “How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown!” To fit the play into modern dress and give it its fullest implication, Mr. Welles has not hesitated to take his liberties with the script. Unlike Professor Strunk, however, who attempted to improve upon Antony and Cleopatra, he has not stabbed it through the heart. He has only chopped away at its body. You may miss a few fingers, even an arm and leg in the Julius Caesar you thought you knew. But the heart of the drama beats more vigorously in this production than it has in years. If the play ceases to be Shakespeare’s tragedy, it does manage to become ours. That is the whole point and glory of Mr. Welles’s unorthodox, but welcome, restatement of it. He places it upon a bare stage, the brick walls of which are crimson and naked. A few steps and a platform and an abyss beyond are the setting. A few steps—and the miracle of enveloping shadows, knifelike rays, and superbly changing lights... His direction, which is constantly creative, is never more so than in its first revelation of Caesar hearing the warning of the soothsayer, or in the fine scene in which Cinna, the poet, is engulfed by a sinister crowd of ruffians. Even when one misses Shakespeare’s lines, Mr. Welles keeps drumming the meaning of his play into our minds by the scuffling of his mobs when they prowl in the shadows, or the herd-like thunder of their feet when they run as one threatening body. It is a memorable device. Like the setting in which it is used, it is pure theater: vibrant, unashamed, and enormously effective. The theatrical virtues of this modern dress Julius Caesar do not stop with its excitements as a stunt in showmanship. They extend to the performances. As Brutus Mr. Welles shows once again how uncommon is his gift for speaking great words simply. His tones are conversational. His manner is quiet. The deliberation of his speech is the mark of the honesty which flames within him. His reticent Brutus is at once a foil to the staginess of the production as a whole and to the oratory of Caesar and Antony. He is a perplexed liberal, this Brutus; an idealist who is swept by bad events into actions which have no less dangerous consequences for the state. His simple reading of the funeral oration is in happy contrast to what is usually done with the speech. George Coulouris is an admirable Antony. So fresh is his characterization, so intelligent his performance that even “Friends, Romans, countrymen” sounds on his tongue as if it were a rabble-rousing harangue which he is uttering for the first time. Joseph Holland’s Caesar is an imperious dictator who could be found frowning at you in this week’s newsreels. He is excellently conceived and excellently projected. Some mention, however inadequate, must be made of Martin Gabel’s capable Cassius, of John Hoysradt’s Decius Brutus, of the conspirators whose black hats are pluck’d about their ears, and Norman Lloyd’s humorous yet deeply affecting Cinna. It would be easy to find faults here and there: to wonder about the wisdom of some of the textual changes even in terms of the present production’s aims; to complain that the whole tragedy does not fit with equal ease into its modern treatment; and to wish this or that scene had been played a little differently. But such fault findings strike me in the case of this Julius Caesar as being as picayune as they are ungrateful. What Mr. Welles and his associates at the Mercury have achieved is a triumph that is exceptional from almost every point of view._______________
1. The movie actress Tallulah Bankhead opened in Antony and Cleopatra on November 10, 1937. Mr. Brown gave the production an unfavorable review.
2. demagoguery: method of appealing to the emotions of people in order to stir up discontent and gain power.
3. Storm... Brown: Storm troopers, members of Hitler’s Nazi-party militia, wore brown shirts. In Italy, Mussolini’s Fascist party members wore uniforms with black shirts.
4. Lines 111–113, spoken by Cassius in Act ???, Scene 1.
5. implication: suggested meaning.
6. crimson: deep red.
7. abyss: deep gulf or pit.
8. ruffians: tough people; hoodlums.
9. oratory: skilled public speaking.
10. rabble-rousing harangue: scolding speech designed to arouse people to anger.
11. imperious: arrogant; domineering.
12. picayune: trivial; unimportant.

Answer 2

@Suenahelpz

Answer 3

Guess?

Answer 4

not really a or c?

Answer 5

@ILovePuppiesLol

Answer 6

@CandyCove

Answer 7

@jabez177 @jigglypuff314 @ILovePuppiesLol

Answer 8

@AdoNine

Answer 9

wht do you think

Answer 10

a?

Answer 11

@AdoNine

Answer 12

try that go with your gut @18jonea !

Answer 13

what do you think? i am completely guessing

Answer 14

@AdoNine

Answer 15

someones asking for help i will be back in a minute hold on.

Answer 16

ok

Answer 17

@AdoNine

Answer 18

@Mehek14

Answer 19

i think a but i just want a second opinion

Answer 20

@Mehek14

Answer 21

@RhondaSommer

Answer 22

It would be easy

to find faults here and there: to wonder about the wisdom of some of the textual changes

even in terms of the present production’s aims; to complain that the whole tragedy does

not fit with equal ease into its modern treatment; and to wish this or that scene had been

played a little differently. But such fault findings strike me in the case of this Julius Caesar

as being as picayune as they are ungrateful.

Answer 23

this is the part @Mehek14

Answer 24

a or c

Answer 25

a is what im going with