Julius Caesar is one of those Shakespeare plays I will always associate with school more than with the stage. It's a very popular high school play, being a tragedy that also straddles the bounds of history. It's absolutely filled with familiar quotes, so students can go into it knowing that Friends, Romans, Countrymen is coming. And it's also very good.

No, scratch that, it's excellent. This was only Shakespeare's third tragedy. His first, Titus Andronicus, I'll get to soon, but suffice to say it's nowhere near as well-written as this. And Romeo and Juliet was very good, but has a totally different non-historical feel. Caesar is especially good considering how unconventional it is. For a tragedy called Julius Caesar, the audience must have been startled when the title character was killed with half a play still to go. Brutus is the tragic hero here.

Speaking of which, yet again we have another Shakespeare play that can be difficult to perform, in that you need to find the right balance between Caesar and Brutus. During the 17th-19th century, most of the great actors took on Brutus, and played up the evil tyrantness of Caesar (everyone hates Shakespeare's ambiguity, and tries to write it out). But around the turn of the 20th century, Caesar emerged in prominence once more, and became more sympathetic, leading to Brutus looking less tragic hero and more tragic jerk.

Shakespeare does love making these characters likeable, even as they're discussing killing Caesar. (Oh yes, remember the double time I talked about in Othello? It's here too, as the plotting and murder of Caesar takes place over a few weeks and over one or two nights at the same time.) And the scene in Act 4 with Brutus and Cassius getting angry with each other, then making up is an actor's dream (plus has the very odd mention of Portia's death, offscreen).

And then there's Marc Antony, who barely shows up until after Caesar's death, but once he does, hoo boy. Shakespeare has never written a better example of why mob politics are reprehensible than Antony's famous speech, where he turns the mob into dogs hungering for the conspirator's blood in just a few short minutes. (Note that, in an 1864 production where Brutus was Edwin Booth, his brother played Antony. That'd be John Wilkes Booth. Later famous for other things.)

Julius Caesar makes people think about the basic question: did Caesar have to die? Was his rule tyrannic? Was he a despot? Were Brutus, Cassius and the others merely trying to save the state they loved? Shakespeare presents both sides equally (likely to the annoyance of Queen Elizabeth, who was not fond of plays about overthrowing the current ruler, especially through violent murder). 1599 again, a very busy year for Shakespeare.

As for what happens after, well, I'll be getting to Antony and Cleopatra down the road. But for now, just enjoy Julius Caesar, a highly underrated tragedy that prepared everyone for his fourth and most famous one in the following year, Hamlet. Hamlet asks many of the same questions, with Hamlet taking the role of Brutus and Claudius of Caesar. And again, we're never quite sure if there *is* a correct answer.