![]() ![]() This caused both amusement and outrage, with critics claiming that liberal-leaning theaters would never have done something similar with a Caesar dressed to look like Barack Obama. In 2017, the Public Theater’s annual Shakespeare in the Park production in New York City presented a Caesar who in costume and mannerisms was clearly supposed to be Donald Trump, accompanied by a Slavic-accented Calphurnia. He even had Cinna the Poet’s death come, not at the hands of a frenzied mob of “the people” so feared by Brutus (as in Shakespeare’s play), but from a Gestapo-like police force. In his 1937 Mercury Theatre production, Orson Welles gave the play a fascistic makeover that evoked both Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany. Many productions give Julius Caesar a modern spin to make the threat of Caesar’s autocracy more visceral. Brutus, on the other hand, fears demagoguery, the political power of the mob, and the dangers of monarchy: “I do fear the people / Choose Caesar for their king.”īrutus (Anthony Cochrane, right) and Cassius (Louis Butelli), Julius Caesar, directed by Robert Richmond, Folger Theatre, 2014. Cassius’ antipathy towards Caesar is personal he seems jealous that Caesar is treated like “a god” when in fact he’s very much a man who once needed Cassius’ help swimming across a river. Shakespeare’s play focuses instead on two of the leaders of the conspiracy: Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus. ![]() William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is about the death of a tyrant, but its title character is not its central protagonist. How did he do this? By depicting an actual historic incident from the distant past, calling it a tragedy, and focusing on the consequences for the perpetrators of this foul deed. In 1599, in the 40th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when she had no heir or obvious successor in a time of increasing instability and fears of civil war, William Shakespeare got away with depicting the assassination of a popular and powerful leader – one with no heir or obvious successor in a time of increasing instability and fears of civil war. Brutus (Anthony Cochrane, left) and Julius Caesar (Michael Sharon, right), Julius Caesar, directed by Robert Richmond, Folger Theatre, 2014. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |