Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Directed by James
Evans. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. To Oct 20.
Julius Caesar is tricky territory, full of rhetoric and
Roman history and hierarchy. It is certainly not essential to roll out the
togas but finding a modern metaphor is not altogether easy. Hitler and
Mussolini have had their influences on productions and I remember a certain
amazement as a school student when in the 1960 BBC TV modern dress version (fine
cast with Michael Goodlife as Brutus and John Laurie as Cassius) the final
verbal faceoff between the opposing armies happened over battlefield radios.
But in this production there’s a slide into a much less
clear visual idiom. There’s some sense of the dictator in Kenneth Ransom’s performance
and he makes a very disturbing ghost.
But there is not a great sense of the Roman citizens as a force full of
individuals with opinions. Shakespeare’s crowds are full of people who know
their own minds but who can be easily swayed.
The costumes don’t help, being modern but not very
indicative of status. Some of the female characters dress up more but if you
did not know the play you might be scrabbling. Brutus (director James Evans
replacing Ivan Donato at short notice) and Cassius (Nick Simpson-Deeks) dress
as casually as any of the citizens and Brutus’ wife Portia (Maryanne Fonceca)
is in jeans and a pink cardigan.
The conspirators are a motley bunch sartorially but there’s
a performance of some comic energy in Ghenoa Gela’s wisecracking Casca.
The military and political elements that usually dominate
seem to fade and what remains (and is very well done by Evans and
Simpson-Deeks) is the fraught friendship of Brutus and Cassius. Brutus comes to
the assassination through reason; Cassius through envy. Both paths are flawed,
although given his head, Cassius might well have won in battle against the
arrogant young Octavian (Emily Havea) and the passionate Anthony (Sara
Zwangobani).
Zwangobani’s Anthony has fire and feeling but Havea’s Octavian
clearly knows how things will turn out in the long run.
Meanwhile it’s Brutus and Cassius saying goodbye for what
they both sense is the last time which lingers in a production that seems to
say that it’s all shadows anyway.
Alanna Maclean
