Back by popular demand, Dr. Barry Nass will focus this year’s salon on Julius Caesar. Join a lively presentation and discussion with wine and dessert at the home of Ed Telzak and Laurie Lieberman in Park Slope.

The 3S's:  Shakespeare Salon Sukkot:  Julius Caesar

“On the 21st of September, after dinner, at about two o’clock, I went with my party across the water; in the straw-thatched house we saw the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar.”  

So wrote the Swiss doctor, Thomas Platter, of the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy in 1599, at the Globe Theater. 

For this year’s Shakespeare Salon, we’ll explore selected scenes from this celebrated—and highly ambiguous—tragedy.  Among other concerns, we’ll want to ask whether Brutus is heroic, misguided, or misled?  Is the assassination of Caesar justified or motivated by questionable ends? How does Shakespeare depict the killing of Caesar, and why?  Why do the speeches of Brutus and Antony after the assassination remain such compelling examples of political tragedy and Shakespeare’s dramatic art?