Imperium

Adapted by Mike Poulton from the Cicero novels of Robert Harris

seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 4 July 2018

Gregory Doran directs Richard McCabe as Cicero and Joseph Kloska as his secretary Tiro, with a supporting cast of twenty-three, in a two part adaptation of Robert Hrris's three Cicero novels (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) though most of the material from the first novel has not been used. The two stage parts are called Conspirator and Dictator, and each contains three plays: Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in the first, and Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian in the second. From this it can be seen that the first play deals with Cicero's consulship (63 BCE) and the subsequent and controversial suppression of Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate government of Rome (if that is what it was), while the second deals with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and its aftermath up to the death of Cicero in the following year.

The structure, though leading to nearly seven hours of acting time ( which may be seen on two occasions, or occasionally all on one day), is a clever one designed to focus attention on a particular character and his effect on Cicero himself. Background explanations are provided at speed by Tiro, the author of a (now lost) biography of Cicero, who speaks directly to the audience, aware of their presence but unsure of their knowledge or their contemporary circumstances. This leads to rather too many nods and winks, either in introducing famous personages at a point when they were still insignificant (Mark Antony as a child), or in innocently raising questions of political corruption, or the existence and status of an off-shore island called Britain. The Brexit-related barbs, and a clever cross reference between Pompey's notorious narcissism and that of Donald Trump (both proud of their hair) raised gales of laughter, but were, I think, rather cheap shots which may damagingly date the plays.

Nonetheless there is a great story to tell - that of Cicero's career and the extraordinary events with which he was connected. And Cicero himself is no mere cipher, but a complex character full of ambition, arrogance, self-doubt, insensitivity and compassion - in short, someone well able to stand at the centre of such an ambitious theatrical undertaking, someone whom Richard McCabe portrays with consummate skill and power. Tiro, inevitably taking on from traditional comedy some of the characteristics of the wise servant attempting to mitigate the chaos caused by his master's blindness and self-regard, remains an engaging link between the ancient world and our own. In the public world, they are surrounded by the wily and the complacent, by old hands and young upstarts, while domestically Cicero must deal with his increasingly disillusioned but always powerful wife Terentia (Siobhán Redmond in a fine performance) and with the devastating loss of his beloved daughter Tullia (Jade Croot).

All this is well managed in a fluid production on an imposing series of steps before a mosaic of a giant face - so large that effectively only the eyes are showing - which broods over the proceedings throughout (designed by Anthony Ward). The production was originally staged in the RSC's smaller Swan Theatre in Stratford, but the dark brick side panels in the wings of the proscenium stage in the London transfer emulate the distinctive atmosphere of the Swan as far as possible. 

With a multitude of (mainly male) characters, and parts doubled - especially between the two main divisions of the play, which are almost a generation apart in time, it is essential that the characters are strongly delineated. Peter de Jersey's Caesar was suave but enigmatic, the nature of his ambition only gradually made clear, until by the time he was in power he was terrifyingly authoritarian. In the meantime David Nicolle's Crassus remained an oily and preening plutocrat. There was little of his unmitigated cruelty on show (his 6000 crucifixions of the Spartacus slave rebels was referred to, but not really linked to his personal character). Psychotic excess was reserved for Joe Dixon's almost uncontrollable Catiline, whose displays of rage and frustration risked collapsing into parody. The same actor was given Mark Antony to play in the Dictator set of plays, and exchanged megalomania for drunkenness kept in check by a shrewishly virulent Fulvia (Eloise Secker). In neither case did the reputed charm of the characters shine through, though of course as the story was told entirely from Tiro's and Cicero's point of view this could hardly be expected. Two young actors, Nicholas Armfield playing the dissolute Clodius and then the icily contained Octavian, and Oliver Johnstone playing the pupil Rufus who later demolished one of Cicero's defence cases, and then Agrippa, Octavian's clear-sighted military adviser (both young men in their 20's in Conspirator and 19-year-olds in Dictator) gave more nuanced performances in their dual roles, even though their characters too could hardly be seen as Cicero's favourites.

This was a massive undertaking, with a complex narrative of power politics, full of conspiracy, betrayal, ambition, and conflict. There was perhaps too much to take in; scenes where characters experienced events but did not really come alive as individuals; and simplifications which have to be made to render the historical record stageworthy (or even worthy of historical fiction). But the major outlines were clear, and the resonances across Cicero's life unified the whole experience in a satisfying way. Where the play overlapped with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar the treatment was intelligently complementary, as it easily could be sinc Shakespeare virtually ignores Cicero whereas here his doomed attempt to organise the conspirators after the assassination is of crucial importance. There was a lovely understated nod to the greater playwright when Tiro mentioned Mark Antony's suicide and commented 'which oft our stage hath shown' (from Henry V); but this made one realise that Dictator had barely prepared the ground for showing why Mark Antony's men should be loyal to him, as for much of the time here he was in a drunken stupor. While probing all the contradictions of Cicero's personality with great effect, Imperium too often allowed the other characters to be less complex.