Julius Caesar is among Shakespeare's most ubiquitous histories, but this time it ran only 45 minutes, its parts performed by only three women. Free Play Theater Cooperative's second production of the season-staged in Schiffman 219 Saturday-flew by as director Sam Zelitch '09 made cuts in mostly the right places, stripping the play down to its most essential speeches and scenes of plot and character development.In the show, a triumphant Caesar (Zohar Fuller '10, Amanda Brown '08, Allison Vanouse '09) returns to Rome from battle as the people's hero. Yet Cassius (Fuller), Brutus and other Romans doubt that Caesar's intentions are noble. They assassinate the would-be tyrant, setting off events that eventually erupt into full-blown war.

With only three actors tackling the 20-plus cast of characters, it could have been easy to get confused. Yet each role was well-defined by the actresses' vocal and physical mannerisms, sweeping the audience along in the chaos that was Roman politics.

Despite the play's ultimate success, using a mere three actors was not the original plan. At the outset, Zelitch said he wanted to use eight actors, but casting conflicts with Undergraduate Theater Collective and theater department shows necessitated a more experimental approach.

And experimental it was. A mask represented Caesar, and the three actresses took turns playing him, dramatically passing the mask back and forth. All of Caesar's lines, played through a prerecorded audiotape, were precisely timed. The effect was artful and elegent, save for the audio's poor quality, which sometimes made discerning Caesar's lines a difficult task.

Yet, that gaffe hardly threw off the actresses onstage, particularly the eloquent Fuller, who gently enunciated her lines with all the grace of a classically trained Shakespearean. Brown and Vanhouse also handled Shakespeare's words delicately and effectively; their talents ensured that following the lines never became a chore.

The production-like most of FPTC's shows-made strong use of its venue, which, lacking a proper performance space and seats, was far from a traditional theater setting. The opening of a shade was used as a lookout point, Caesar's blood was dragged along a window by Brown's hand and the cast even employed a projector at one point.

The use of the unusual surroundings even extended to the audience. Brown tried exceptionally hard to incite the audience, offering them Caesar's crown and encouraging them to chant as part of a populace acquiescing to the charisma of Mark Antony, Caesar's supporter who later fought for Rome's stewardship.

Brown and her fellow actresses were largely successful, save only when they-and not a crew-had to distractingly perform the set changes and light motions. Because of this, the pace of the entire performance was rather frantic, and the 10-second pauses for scene changes and the constant switching on and off of lights seemed to disrupt its flow.

Still, the novel quality of the production made FPTC's Caesar a far cry from your typical Shakespeare, and that was exactly Zelitch's intention: "I am tired of hearing people say they hate and avoid Shakespeare's plays because they are boring," he said.

But unlike the many contemporary revivals of Shakespeare that transplant the Bard's works to different settings or points in history, Zelitch's Julius Caesar updated the play while keeping it firmly grounded in Rome. His emphasis on form and minimalist venue heightened his audience's sense of certain aspects of the work.

Julius Caesar continues its run in Shiffman Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.