This week, Laboratory Theater of Florida in Fort Myers opens a provocative production of the classic Shakespeare tragedy, “Julius Caesar,” but not like it’s been experienced before.
This production is a modern re-imaging set, not in ancient Rome, but in the dark parking lot of a derelict apartment complex. The production maintains the original Elizabethan language and all the best-known monologues and soliloquies from the play, but this is a heavily condensed version, reducing the runtime to about 90 minutes and reducing the cast from 27 characters down to nine actors.
Many productions of “Julius Caesar” tend to lean into the story’s similarities with whatever political moment the show’s audiences are experiencing, but this production challenges audiences to look beyond those parallels and to grapple with the play’s primal and timeless themes of power and ambition, honor vs. betrayal, persuasion and rhetoric, fate vs. free will, and the perhaps frightening fragility of civilization.
We take a deeper dive into the play in a conversation with the show’s co-directors Alex Dagg, who makes his Lab Theater directorial debut with this show, and founding Lab Theater member and Vice President Nykkie Rizley.
If You Go:
Laboratory Theater of Florida’s production of “Julius Caesar”
1634 Woodford Ave., Fort Myers, FL 33901
Performances run April 3 - 26
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening performances start at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 4, and Sunday matinee performances start at 2 p.m.
Half-price preview performance on Thursday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m.
