Tuesday Night in Fort Greene: Curious Frog Theatre Company presents "Julius Caesar" in Fort Greene Park

Tonight we were in the leafy expanse of Fort Greene Park to see an engrossing, thoughtful production of Julius Caesar -- with the most incredibly intense fight scenes we've seen in a long time -- by the Curious Frog Theatre Company, whose work we've admired for years.

We've written before about how Julius Caesar has been one of our favorite Shakespeare plays since we first read it more than 46 years ago -- we know a lot of the play by heart -- and we never get tired of seeing productions, even though we've seen several just in the past couple of years.

It was a gorgeous night, and the performance took place on the hilly meadow by the north side of Fort Greene Park, near Myrtle Avenue, surrounded by the huge trees.

The 149-foot granite Doric column over the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument crypt served as a wonderfully apt backdrop to this play of intrigue set in ancient Rome.

The play also resonated with us seeing it on the day rebels overwhelmed Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, with no one sure what the outcome will be of this strike against a charismatic tyrant whose supporters in Tripoli remain angrily defiant.

Yeah, Julius Caesar is definitely still relevant, and the Curious Frog production made that evident. Director Robert J. Dyckman moves things along efficiently, if not bloodlessly. But the full passions, apart from the scenes with the worried Roman wives Portia (Kimberley Wong)

and Calpurnia (Angela Sharp) -- the only female characters, although this production's ethnically diverse cast of seven men and seven women all play roles without regard to gender, which works so well it seems unremarkable -- don't really start to appear until after the assassination.

Then the momentum of the drama, and the passions of the street mobs and the individual leaders, move things with an irresistible momentum to the spectacular long and violent fight scenes (kudos to fight director Rocio Mendez) -- with both men and women going at it with a ferocity that's actually scary -- and the final military battles and the deaths of the major conspirators.

Set in the traditional 44 B.C.E. with Roman garb, the play nevertheless seems timeless. (To us, this play's traditional costumes somehow always come off as more contemporary than Shakespeare played in Elizabethan costumes.)

James Ware is a strong Julius Caesar, perhaps rasher and more in command than others we've seen (in the classic film version, Louis Calhern plays him as a kind of doddering old leader), and Nicholas Urda as Brutus conveys intelligence and wariness.

That wariness is especially directed at Cassius, played here by Reneé Rodriguez (director of some of the previous Curious Frog productions we've enjoyed) with an almost sneering skepticism about everything except her own ideas. Director Robert J. Dyckman delivers an effective funeral oration as Mark Antony, though at times Antony's cynicism is only slightly less hidden than Cassius'.

As seems customary with the productions of Julius Caesar we've seen onstage, most of the cast takes on multiple roles, with nearly all the actors except the major characters being members of the mobs of commoners and crowds of Roman citizens as well as the fierce soldiers in battle in the Acts IV and V scenes.

They included Emilio Aquino as Decius Brutus and an assured Octavius); Angela Sharp (Calpurnia/Popilius/Messala​/2nd Commoner); Krystine Summers in the roles of stolid characters like Casca, Lepidus, and Strato as well as a Commoner-Musician
Kimberley Wong (Portia/Soothsayer/Pindarus​/Citizen 2) and Manuel de la Portilla, who's all over the place and seems to be more than one person playing Marullus, Brutus' boy servant Lucius, Caesar’s servant, the senators Cicero and Publius, the soldier Cato and a citizen -- whew!).

Additional excellent cast members, performing with equal energy, were Al Patrick Jo, who made a very good Metellus Cimber as well as Lucillius and Citizen 3); D. Ajane Carlton (Flavius/Artemidorus/Soldie​r 2/Citizen 4); Shae Orrick, playing Trebonius and Volumnius; Holly Dortch as Cinna and Titinius; and Kevin Russo (Caius Ligarius/Octavius’ Servant/Soldier 1).

We were impressed by the minimalist set, which worked fine in this setting, and since Curious Frog Theatre Company is taking this Julius Caesar, as well as Two Gentlemen of Verona, to a dozen parks and other venues in four boroughs, it's obviously necessary.

As darkness descended over Fort Greene Park and this excellent production ended, after depositing our usual donation into, here, a Roman warrior's shield, we walked along to through the park, thinking about, among the many lines we've learned by heart since ninth grade, these, immediately after Caesar's assassination: "How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, / In states unborn and accents yet unknown!" And when we got home, we looked to the New York Times website to see the news from Tripoli.

We're grateful we got to see the Curious Frog Theatre Company do their thing tonight. If you can attend one of the eleven remaining performances of their 2011 summer season, you'll probably be grateful, too.

Monday Night in Williamsburg: Moviehouse's Cinema Parque presents "Sternberg Dances" at Sternberg Park

We've just walked up Lorimer Street from Sternberg Park, where we went to Moviehouse's final Cinema Parque presentation of this summer, Sternberg Dances, featuring the site-specific work of choreographer Ann Robideaux and her friends.

Here's the description of this fascinating project:

Local park-goers of all ages, encouraged by choreographer Ann Robideaux, participate in a community dance collaboration resulting in a montage of movement and other talents for the camera. Open to everyone, this site-specific dance film celebrates Sternberg Park’s unique personalities and social community in one of Williamsburg’s most historic parks.

The final project, to be edited by Chris Carlone features a fortuitous and spontaneous collaboration between Ann and Samantha Jakus who also dances for powerhouse dance company: Streb.

Also look for Megan Sipe, Rosa Maria Torres (pictured above), Musicworks, and a few other amazing dance improvisers on the camera.

Ann Robideaux has choreographed in numerous venues, and for film/television for many years and has recently been the co-artistic director of ann and alexx make dances, where she choreographed aboard two World War II lightships, on the steps of the Eldridge Street Synagogue and amongst the audience seating at Dance New Amsterdam. Working with various communities, Ann is loving the chance to meet new people while behind the camera in NYC through the Sternberg Dances.

It was really fun to watch, especially with some of the park's kids in the film sitting in the audience. There was popcorn, too.

Here is some raw footage of an awesome playground dance:

There was also a film of an expressive dance done at Dead Horse Bay, back in the neighborhood where we grew up back in the late '50s and '60s.

Jesse Neuman has this, mostly stills, from the footage:

After the films were shown, Chris Henderson led a Q & A with the filmmaker, choreographer and dancer.

It was a valuable project, and we're grateful we got to see it on such a beautiful night in Sternberg Park. Thanks so much to everyone involved.

Saul Galin, RIP

We were saddened to hear about the death of Saul Galin, who was our first creative writing teacher. Saul was the professor for our introductory undergrad creative writing class at Brooklyn College in the spring of 1972, and he was the first person to really encourage us, saying we were one of the few students who he thought could become a writer. We loved his stories and his amazing sense of humor, his no-nonsense but gentle style, and his great personal warmth and keen intelligence. We will miss him a lot and send our condolences to his family. Here was the obituary notice from today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Saul Galin

Died in San Francisco at age 85. Survived by his last former wife and friend Elizabeth Vasile, one daughter, and three grandchildren. Predeceased by another former wife and friend, Marlene Kopec. Professor Emeritus of English at CUNY Brooklyn, where he taught poetry, drama, and creative writing for over 40 years, spearheaded the creation of the departments BFA program in Creative Writing, and developed and directed the CUNY Brooklyn London Summer Program in Literature and Theatre. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=153190694#sthash.TcbHP1eS.dpuf

Above all, he was a champion of the power of the imagination, and encouraged his students and those surrounding him to find their creative voice. He also took pride in making great works of literature accessible to all. In 1961, he founded Odyssey Review, a quarterly journal of modern Latin American and European literature in English translation, which he served as editor. Odyssey published works never before translated into English, including pieces by Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Cesar Vallejo, and Nicanor Parra, and in so doing made these voices available to a wider audience.

In 1999, near the end of his career, he produced a 27-hour marathon reading of Moby Dick for the People of England, in which professional actors, students, and the general public were invited to take a part in reading the great work from beginning to end. Throughout his life, Galin had a passion for teaching and for the art of conversation. He was known for his exuberant personality, wit, and intellectual inventiveness.

Following his retirement from CUNY, he started a play reading salon, dubbed The Republic of the Imagination, where he presided as self-appointed President. A 2002 New York Times article about the salon captured the essence of these literary gatherings in quoting him thus: "The Republic of the Imagination is in everybody . . . It's a country on the map of the world where we can all go. Once we're there, we're free." The Republic of the Imagination convened play reading groups in New York apartments, and at the Mechanics Institute Library in San Francisco, where he also directed the first Mechanics Institute Annual World Poetry Reading, which featured the works of 34 poets recited by 17 readers in 10 languages.

Born in Suwalki, Poland near the German border, Saul came with his mother to New York in 1932 to rejoin his father, who had emigrated to the US a few years earlier. The family settled in the Bronx, where they had a small neighborhood grocery. Saul volunteered for US Army service in WWII, and fought on the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge. All of his family members who remained in Poland were lost, victims of the Holocaust. Following the war he returned to university, earning his Bachelors in Economics at NYU, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Funeral services were held on August 4, 2011, at Home of Eternity in Oakland, CA. Donations in Saul's memory to The Academy of American Poets, preferred.

Saturday Afternoon and Evening in East Williamsburg: The Go Folk Yourself Summer Fest at Cooper Park

We spent several wonderful hours today at Cooper Park at the Go Folk Yourself Summer Fest, an all-day event from the folks at Go Folk Yourself (GFY), a music video newsblog that promotes independent artists in Brooklyn.

Since we just have to walk down Conselyea Street the four blocks to its end where it turns into Maspeth Avenue for another few blocks, we went back and forth during the afternoon and early evening, so of course we didn't see all the bands on the lineup:

The Ruby Spirit, The Secret History, Tayisha Busay, Friends, GunFight!, New Atlantic Youth, Friend Roulette, Whale Belly, Zachary Cale, Swear and Shake, Crooks and Perverts.


Still, the music we did hear was terrific. Up first was Crooks and Perverts.




Swear and Shake






Friend Roulette







New Atlantic Youth





Gunfight!