CHICAGO -- As if to prove that all politics are local, on Feb. 22 the ChicSpeare Production Company opened a very Chicago version of Julius Caesar. Performed at Tin Fish Theatre, Ann James' staging celebrates Chicago's favorite spectator sport -- politics -- by setting Shakespeare's tragedy during the turbulent mayoralty of Harold Washington, Chicago's first and only African- American mayor.
The highly localized action is set during the 1983 election and its aftermath, the divisive "Council Wars" that were waged between the independent mayor and the "machine" aldermen (though the aldermen didn't actually assassinate Washington, per the plot of Julius Caesar, they came as close to doing the deed as was legally possible).
-- By Lawrence Bommer
Chicago Correspondent
