Iambic Pentameter

We sat around a stained table in the art room reading Julius Caesar today. First readings are what they are, forgiving and unspectacular. But Shakespeare firsts have a special luster; they glimmer with a powerful, directionless angst.

Something about reading Shakespeare brings out the same kind of slow, evenly measured and ominous vocal dynamics in any number of otherwise very talented actors, and this group was no exception.

So I learned today that Antony and Brutus are basically the same person. They both talk slowly and with a kind of fleeting wistfulness, ending each of their sentences with an erudite nod to some sort of sublime, distant oblivion, and everything they say is earnest, loud, acontextual, and very, very important.

Oh, you blithering would-be nobles, you.