"Alas, thou has misconstrued everything " Timothy Mooney presents the companion book to his celebrated performance of his one-man play, "Breakneck Julius Caesar." Both play, and interpretive guide, "The Breakneck Julius Caesar Companion" presents all the background needed to make sense of one of Shakespeare's most challenging plays, all the while demonstrating how very wrong we have gotten this play over all these years "The Breakneck Julius Caesar Companion" is like a wild trip inside the mind of an amazing Shakespearean performer, as he picks apart the misleading cues that have led students and scholars down blind alleys which have caused "millions of undergraduates" to miss just how wry, witty, fun, dramatic and sometimes scathing this play can be Mooney unravels characters that you think you know, to discover hidden secrets, ploys, and postures that bubble underneath all the choices these wildly inconsistent and unreliable characters make Presented here, in full, Mooney's original play, "Breakneck Julius Caesar" is the fastest, most epic, insightful, funniest introduction to one of Shakespeare's most misunderstood works Both play and history lesson, "Breakneck Julius Caesar" opens the door to understanding the context and character nuances driving the action. Jumping from some of Shakespeare's richest, most profound poetry to Mooney's hilarious modern perspective, "Breakneck Julius Caesar" gives the precise facts we need to make the many levels of intrigue come vividly alive It's a go-to resource and the perfect starting point to finally "get" this amazing play... with an ending that flies in the face of everything you think that you know about Julius Caesar Meanwhile, "The Breakneck Julius Caesar Companion" tracks Mooney's historical research, plot, acting and character notes alongside the text of the script itself, enabling us to follow, on a moment-by-moment basis, the answers to questions that have confused Shakespeare scholars for ages Mooney explains just why every production of "Julius Caesar" you have ever seen has probably left you feeling vaguely unsatisfied He traces the sources of the action back five centuries as the reign of the hated "Tarquins" came to a close in 509 B.C., underlines exactly why the Romans hated kings as much as they did, and just why Caesar's reign had become such a threat to the Senators. Mooney dissects just why the character of Brutus seems to be such a contradiction unto himself, and what crucial understanding of Brutus can enable us to unlock that puzzle. And, Mooney manages to squeeze in some funny jokes along the way. Which may be the best part.