CAMBRIDGE - Inside a rehearsal hall, three unshaven men wearing black dance shoes are sprawled out across the floor, lifeless. Actor James True-Frost gets on bended knee, over and over again, then thrusts himself into the scene, Brutus's bloody end, followed by a ghostly party of the dead.
Here's where the dance shoes and a jazz trio come in.
"You are not in the same story," the young French director Arthur Nauzyciel says to the dead before a choreographer teaches them their dance moves. "You are not in the same world. At some point you'll arrive at the other side."
Giggling, he references the blockbuster movie "The Sixth Sense."
"It's like Bruce Willis meets Lucius. . ."
Clearly, this is no ordinary staging of "Julius Caesar," Shakespeare's tragic portrayal of loyalty and honor torn apart by political ambition, assassination, and civil war. The production, which opens tonight at the American Repertory Theatre, is in the hands of Nauzyciel, an innovative director with a reputation for assembling multimedia dreamscapes to capture audiences' imagination. The cast includes True-Frost (best known as "Prez," the oft-bungling police officer turned teacher on HBO's "The Wire") as Brutus and James Waterston (son of Sam Waterston of "Law & Order" fame) as Mark Anthony.
Most telling is the set, which includes two-tone leather couches and a dinette complete with moon chairs, retro throwbacks to the 1960s.
Also revealing is the inspiration wall at the entrance of the hall. It is a collage of black-and-white photocopies of images, featuring John F. Kennedy delivering speeches on the campaign trail and other iconic photos from the Kennedy era, including one of Fidel Castro in military uniform. At the center of it all is a picture of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, smiling at a recent Democratic debate. In this Shakespeare production, there will be no traditional swords, togas, or "pumpkin pants," says Thomas Derrah, a veteran actor with the ART who plays Caesar. Instead, the actors will wear 1960s-style tailored suits.
"Some people don't like things that are so-called 'edgy,' and I try to stay away from those buzzwords, but I think it's a modern take on a play people think they know because everybody's studied it in high school or college," he says. "This play is really about politics, about people saying, 'We need a change. We need a change from Julius Caesar.' So we are going to change so it will be better. And it never gets any better."
In sketching his vision for the play, Nauzyciel, artistic director of the Centre Dramatique National/Orléans-Loiret-Centre, points out the obvious link between the assassination of Caesar and that of Kennedy, with the scars and sense of hopelessness it left on the psyche of the American people, and he says his set designs are influenced by 1960s innovations such as the rise of Pop Art and the installations of the Ant Farm, an experimental design collective featuring architecture, performance, and video. But he stops short of suggesting his production is set literally in the 1960s.
Instead, "Julius Caesar" is "a memory of the future," he says, "a user's manual for the next generation." And when it comes to the perils of politics, very little has changed.
"It's like we are still stuck in the time Shakespeare is talking about," says the director. "We have a feeling that hundreds of years have passed, and we are in a different world. Well, no, we are still in that world. What have we invented since that time? What have we invented when it comes to democracy? What's new? Nothing. We are still stuck in that moment."
Father and son
If this production is a challenge to a new generation, the cast appears ready to take it on.
At 39, Waterston is the third member of his family to perform on the ART stage. His father, who now plays DA Jack McCoy on "Law & Order," and his sister Elizabeth Waterston have both performed with the ART.
James Waterston says he feels blessed and fortunate to have had the example of his father, with his family living like "gypsies," following Dad around from job to job, as well as the opportunity to find his own voice and place in the theater and on the screen.
He confesses that there was a time when he would get "all hot and bothered" over the comparisons people made between him and his father. "They say, 'Oh, you're the son of Sam Waterston,' " he relates, laughing. "I realize now that I would have to become more famous than Madonna for anyone to say to my dad, 'Oh, you are James Waterston's father.' "
While in his early 20s, Waterston was in the film "Dead Poets Society." He has also performed in "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, "As You Like It" at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and "The Jew of Malta" at New York's Classic Stage Company. He has numerous regional credits (including the Huntington Theatre Company and the Williamstown Theatre Festival), and has appeared in TV shows, including "Law & Order" and HBO's "Six Feet Under."
But as he prepared to sit down for the third week of table reading - Nauzyciel's attempt to get the actors to really focus on the text - Waterston, who is quiet-spoken and cheerily self-deprecating, admits: "This is truly unlike any experience I've ever had. It's exciting."
He knew from the moment he met Nauzyciel, he says, that this play was going to be special.
"The way the director was conducting the audition was unlike any other audition I had," he says in a bemused half whisper, playfully making sure Nauzyciel is not within earshot. "First of all, he took plenty of time. Each person he gave a good 20 minutes to a half-an-hour in the room. By his standards it was short. I guess in France, I don't know what they do. Have a barbecue, go see a movie."
He chuckles. "It really was great because he was talking," Waterston says. "He was just talking. It was like a trick pony thing. 'Do it with your hands on your head. Try it this way.' It was almost as if we were already rehearsing. That was really appealing. Almost strikingly."
As for True-Frost, despite his numerous acting credits - including four seasons on "The Wire" and a role as a "hillbilly alcoholic," as he puts it, in the upcoming film "Diminished Capacity" with Alan Alda and Matthew Broderick - the actor relishes the challenges of working with Nauzyciel and performing in his first Shakespeare play.
True-Frost, 41, has lived with his wife, Cora, in Cambridge for the past two years, and he says he was eager to take on stage work again and stay close to home, where his wife works as a Harvard Law School lecturer.
"Here there are a lot of the same things we liked about New York, a lot of interesting people, a mix of cultures, and politics, but in terms of lifestyles it's a lot saner, quieter," says True-Frost.
"The people here have been great. Cambridge is a really nice town," he says, "Working at the ART is perfect for me. When we moved here two years ago, I was starting work on season four of 'The Wire," after that I went to Chicago to do a play at my home company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and then I went to LA for a couple months and New York to do some things. This is my first chance to do a play here in town. And this is a great theater town."
Still, working with Nauzyciel to build the character of Brutus, a very complex political figure, has been a departure for him, he says.
"This is the first time I've gotten to work with a more conceptual, avant-garde theatrical approach," he says, "and luckily for me with a director who has a strong vision of the theater but who also really values the actor's craft. So it's just not a case of puppet master with beautiful ideas who keeps telling the actor where to stand and how to walk, which is great. I think people will like it."
