Eh Toque Brute?

There is a fine line between tragedy and comedy. In my experience the more tragic the play, the more hilarious it seems backstage. The laughter is the release of the darkness and tension that gets worked up onstage. Last semester I was in a production of A Midsummer Nights Dream - Which has the inept mechanicals atttemping to put on a tradgedy similar to Romeo and Juliet- called Pryramus and Thisby. The scene where the "Rude Mechanicals" attempt to pull off a high tradgedy is probably on of the funniest scenes I have ever seen done in a Shakespeare play. It should be a tradgedy, but instead it is comedy.
Now with the Romans, It's pretty much sex, death and fighting (with a little comic relief). Yet, as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. By the time we get to having an audience the crew is terribly familiar with the show.
It's not that the show isn't good
It is
It is just that we go between the words to make our own meanings. We create relationships and secret love affairs that are not in the script.
For instance, Enobarbus is in love with Cleopatra -but he is having anaffair with Iras who is in love with Anthony. Cassius has an eating disorder - which is why he "has alean and hungry look" he is afraid of becoming so fat Brutus will no longer love him - " is my bum too big?"
I can't even begin to talk about all the sketches in my script I've doodled-