Playwright: William Shakespeare. At: Babes with Blades Theatre Company at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St. Tickets: 773-904-0391; www.babeswithblades.org; $20. Runs through: April 20
Of all Shakespeare's dramas (excepting perhaps Timon of Athens), this one comes closest to being an all-male event. The list of characters includes only two women, both wives whose sole dramatic function is to fret over their husbands, and the word "men" appears in the dialogue so ubiquitously that you could construct a drinking game around its repetition. Yes, history mandates that the ancient Roman revolt be engineered by the boys in the senate, and quashed by bigger boys who play rougher. However, when you consider the fundamentally conspiratorial nature of social interactions associated with women in groups, the world of plotting and politics seems a natural fit for sisterly dynamics.
In the Babes With Blades Theatre Company's production, this cultural assonance is affirmed by the swiftness with which we forget that the familiar tragedy is acted by an exclusively female castnot as a drag show, but with pronouns unchanged and Elizabethan sexist attitudes unsoftened. The treble vocal range allows for aural diversity as great as you'd find in any men's choir and the body types likewise varied, especially given the sartorial androgeny bestowed by the play's setting among the Sepoys of South Asia.
More important than the storytellers, after all, is the storyhow Brutus was persuaded by his boon companion, Cassius, to join in a plot to murder the emperor, and how Marc Antony turned public opinion against the assassins, triggering a civil war ending in both its rebel leaders' suicide. The close quarters of the Raven Theatre's studio space puts the action near enough for the energy emanating from the stage (cleverly intensified by director Wyatt Kent's device of having the characters address us as they would the Roman populace) to spark an emotional response in the audience, lending the tale's progress an immediacy too often diluted in larger auditoriums.
The actors themselves also generate excitement through meticulously crafted phrasing and delivery that keeps us apprised of the unfolding intrigue at every moment. Sara Gorsky's Cassius, in particular, commands our attention with expressive face and hands, not to mention the clearest enunciation heard lately in equity or non-equity playhouses. Kimberly Logan portrays a Brutus who argues, rather than asserts, his opinions, making him easy prey for Diana Coates' confidant, Antony, while Chicago newcomer Maureen Yasko endows Caesar with not only dignity but the vigor to fend off his attackers until Brutus strikes him the first blow. (Ironically, the staging encompasses fewer scenes of graphic violence than most of this spring season's "alternative" Shakespeare productions, including the recently closed big-budget work downtown. Whoever thought that an ensemble founded on martial spectacle would prove the champions of brains over brawn in its interpretation of classic repertory?)