Constant as the Northern Star

I had a weird bit of synchronicity happen to me on the way home from the theater after the first day of the Italian Film Festival. The second movie of the day was Caesar Must Die (2012, directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani), a hybrid documentary about a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar performed by high security prisoners. At one point, one prisoner who is not performing in the play suggests that the story reminds him of his life back in Nigeria. Cut to the drive home. I was listening to Weekends on NPR and the story that was on the radio when I turned it on was a piece about a new Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar set in Africa and performed by an all black cast. That sent a bit of frission coursing up the back of my skull. But that's Shakespeare for you, I guess. The Bard can be a reflecting mirror sometimes. You see in him what you bring to him.

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