What’s in a name? A lot, when that overstuffed moniker is Julius X: A Re-envisioning of the Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. The title is as descriptive in form as it is content—conveying clearly just how strained playwright Al Letson’s attempt to graft the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X onto the skeleton of Shakespeare’s account of the slaying of a Roman dictator some 2,000 years earlier becomes. Both leaders were killed by their former allies (though Malcolm X’s assassins have not been definitively identified). Beyond that, similarities do not abound.

Still, the idea is a timely one, given the uptick in political violence in the U.S. in recent years, and the growing segment of the populace who tell pollsters it’s sometimes necessary. So it’s somewhat surprising that Let

See Full Page