Lovely ideas

http://www.shmoop.com/julius-caesar/cassius.html -  Just ready this and i had the idea of during brutuses interrogation scene, cinna could mention cassius inciting brutus to kill ceasar, we could have cassius as a presence in the room speaking over what there saying, we could use the lines in the link i have poster.

March 21st

Today we finished off the order of our pitch and also sorted out our opening paragraph.we also work shopped two ideas for Julius where cinna is intimidating the 5 accused in the same room. The mug Shot idea is now set.we just have to look into what detectives would actually ask the accuses to make the speech in the scene more realistic. We decided we will be using the accused speaking in Shakespeare and cinna mostly in modern English.

20th March

Ok so we decided we would play cluedo to help us look onto the way mysterys and investigations were set out. After playing we realised that with the investigation end interrogation scenes we would need evidence to bring the piece to life a little more. After I was shown wat the others did in the rehearsal yesterday which I missed. Do much of it was physical theatre driven and today we played with maybe using the others to try and intimidate the victims more.

Brutus idea

Had a bit of a weird vision. In the character description Brutus is basically wrote as someone who is told what to do. We could almost had him a bit oblivious to what's going on. We could almost be refusing to answer because theres no one there to tell him what to do.

Inspiration from "Of mice and men" by John Steinbeck

Themes

Themes ( for the actual play ) I have put * next to the ones I feel we use/Will use

Fate verses free will*
Public self verses private self*
Misinterpretations and misreading's *
Inflexibility versus Compromise
Rhetoric and Power*
Omens and Portents
Letters*
Symbols
Women and Wives

Octavious

Spark notes
Octavius -  Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor. Octavius, who had been traveling abroad, returns after Caesar’s death; he then joins with Antony and sets off to fight Cassius and Brutus. Antony tries to control Octavius’s movements, but Octavius follows his adopted father’s example and emerges as the authoritative figure, paving the way for his eventual seizure of the reins of Roman government.

Just accuse him of wanting his fathers power. There we can get in the theme of power, and maybe some jealousy in there.

Portia

Spark notes
Portia -  Brutus’s wife; the daughter of a noble Roman who took sides against Caesar. Portia, accustomed to being Brutus’s confidante, is upset to find him so reluctant to speak his mind when she finds him troubled. Brutus later hears that Portia has killed herself out of grief that Antony and Octavius have become so powerful.

Not sure on this character, possibly accuse her of doing it for her husband?

Brutus

Spark notes
Brutus -  A supporter of the republic who believes strongly in a government guided by the votes of senators. While Brutus loves Caesar as a friend, he opposes the ascension of any single man to the position of dictator, and he fears that Caesar aspires to such power. Brutus’s inflexible sense of honor makes it easy for Caesar’s enemies to manipulate him into believing that Caesar must die in order to preserve the republic. While the other conspirators act out of envy and rivalry, only Brutus truly believes that Caesar’s death will benefit Rome. Unlike Caesar, Brutus is able to separate completely his public life from his private life; by giving priority to matters of state, he epitomizes Roman virtue. Torn between his loyalty to Caesar and his allegiance to the state, Brutus becomes the tragic hero of the play.

Cinna could say something like "We all know that you would pick the better from Rome Over your loyalty to your friend"

Mark anthony

Spark notes
Antony -  A friend of Caesar. Antony claims allegiance to Brutus and the conspirators after Caesar’s death in order to save his own life. Later, however, when speaking a funeral oration over Caesar’s body, he spectacularly persuades the audience to withdraw its support of Brutus and instead condemn him as a traitor. With tears on his cheeks and Caesar’s will in his hand, Antony engages masterful rhetoric to stir the crowd to revolt against the conspirators. Antony’s desire to exclude Lepidus from the power that Antony and Octavius intend to share hints at his own ambitious nature.

In the interrogation scenes we could use the fact that mark Anthony turned the people of Rome against Brutus. We could use it in a way like "You obviously wanted to make the people of Rome hate Brutus so the blame is shifted away from you"

Cassius evidence

Spark notes -
Cassius -  A talented general and longtime acquaintance of Caesar. Cassius dislikes the fact that Caesar has become godlike in the eyes of the Romans. He slyly leads Brutus to believe that Caesar has become too powerful and must die, finally converting Brutus to his cause by sending him forged letters claiming that the Roman people support the death of Caesar. Impulsive and unscrupulous, Cassius harbors no illusions about the way the political world works. A shrewd opportunist, he proves successful but lacks integrity.

I would like to use the letters as evidence against Cassius. This way we can stay true to the story and also have more layers in the piece.

Court scene

BOOM new idea. Last scene, like a court scene as we've been thinking. Maybe we could have brutus on one balcony, even though hes dead, as a kinda ghost, cassius on the other, and julius outside the like sound an light room? If they are there present as ghosts it might just be a been freaky.

Death ideas

Just been thinking about some nice and powerful scenes we could use. One the ideas i had was while siners talking a gun shot could go off, her and the audience go to investigate and either cassius or brutus is laying there with a gun next to them in a pool of blood. The other idea i had would be she goes to talk to brut or cas and she opens the door of the cell and hes lying, the sink slightely over flowing with blood coming from his mouth and covering his shirt with a bottle of bleach next to him with a letter confessing the murder. Then there is cctv evidence of mark anthony convincing them to kill themselves. This means we can use the idea of them commiting suicidde and a kind of interpritation of the war in the script.

Death scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmMQN0AMk7k  <-- possibly use stuff like this for ceasars death ;)

Wall Street Crash

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/76/economics/wall-street-crash-1929/  <-- the link i used. So my general idea of the wall street crash is that People were paying a certain amount of moneys for shares knowing they would make money. Banks were also giving them big loans to buy these shares. This meant that when the stock markets crashed banks didnt get their loans payed back to them, so banks went it to dept, and the people who had shares of the stocks would also be losing a lot of money. This made people have to start living in kinda of shack towns, houses made out of little bits of wood and tin roofs. Now if we made ceasar the head of the buisness, Brutus his right hand man, And Cassius and the rest of the conspitarors as his workers, we could do the play as if ceasar is losing money from his buisness so has needed to fire workers and cut their pay to save himself, he is trying to do the best for the buisness but going the wrong way about it, you see what im saying ;) That way he keep the general story but fix it with an issue wich still effects us today..... P.s, OMG IM ACTUALLY RESEARCHING, i think im ill.....

Ceasar Story

http://www.shmoop.com/julius-caesar/summary.html This is just a link i found which explains the story of ceasar in a way literally anyone can understand, it its a bit vague so obviously i will need to look more at the script, but i feel its a good starting point to get a gist on the play.

NomNom

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