by William Shakespeare
seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018
Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Angus Jackson and features Alex Waldmann as Brutus, Martin Hutson as Cassius, Andrew Woodall as Julius Caesar, James Corrigan as Mark Antony and Jon Tarcy as Octavius Caesar.
The setting is notionally Classical (columns, and a foreboding statue of a lion mauling a horse, feature at the back of the stage in the first half, rather than any realistic evocation of sites such as the theatre of Pompey where Caesar's assassination actually took place; rough indications of open landscape for the second half - designer Robert Innes Hopkins); the costumes also feature togas and tunics, but also very un-Roman red calf-length trousers.
This helps establish the historical background, and allows for very fine visual effects when, for example, the conspirators move from being a group of symmetrically placed almost-statues to a mob of baying assassins. It also gives added effect to Julius Caesar's stately arrogance, while allowing us to see the human frailty it is meant to conceal (a certain elderly deafness as well as hints of the epilepsy referred to by Cassius). Andrew Woodall shows us the arrogance of the man who evidently will not need much more persuading to become a king.
