SOURCE: Weber, Bruce. Review of Julius Caesar. New York Times (22 July 2003): E1, E5.

In the following review, Weber admires director Daniel Sullivan's 2003 production of Julius Caesar staged at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, particularly its imaginative and politically evocative setting which depicted life after the collapse of the American empire and suggested the destructive legacy imposed by worldly ambition.

Julius Caesar is so full of aphorisms and declarations that onstage it often succumbs to pomposity. The play is so concerned with the difference between what men say and what they think as they jockey for power that it is frequently performed with two-faced hyperbole. And it is so determined to illustrate the manipulative nature of politics that in performance it can drip with irony or light up its contemporary relevance in neon. No wonder it is a junior high school classic.

The wonder of Daniel Sullivan's...