Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Atri Banerjee
It would be disingenuous to pretend not to have seen the explosion of disappointment and fury on the site after the original review at Stratford-on-Avon, so the opening comes as no surprise, a miscellaneously dressed set of people lined up before a mighty block, making strange noises (exhaling loudly, assorted animal noises), while a dancer in white top and red tracksuit trousers strikes agonised poses. It was a shock to find that this took the place of the mob scene that the play opens with, but which is played out with only two work people.
It does seem unfortunate that a company as heavily subsidised as the Royal Shakespeare Company, capable of putting out a cast of 25, plus an under-used community chorus, should have decided to abandon Shakespeare’s two magnificent crowd scenes where he re-creates – convincingly, if probably not accurately – the Roman mob for a modern (16th century) audience. It’s worth mentioning the efforts of the red track-suited one in Brutus’ and Antony’s podium speeches – very clever, skilfully done, not the same as a crowd.
Notwithstanding the assorted irritations – Julius Caesar, for instance, is stabbed by conspirators who smear his black blood around at which point he howls like a dog and slowly expires – by the end of the long first half (90 minutes) some element of involvement is communicated. Things are definitely better, if only slightly, than our irate readers suggested.
Maybe the replacement of a female Cassius with a non-binary actor helps. Annabel Baldwin strikes just the right note in their early scene with Brutus and Casca (Matthew Bulgo very telling here, even if he makes less impact later). Nigel Barrett is a straightforward Caesar and has no trouble phrasing the Shakespearean blank verse, unlike some of his comrades. The difficulty here is that Brutus appears as no more than a charming young woman, though from the funeral oration onwards Thalissa Teixeira makes much more impact.
After Teixeira hits her stride with the oration, William Robinson excels with “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” getting one of the few genuinely Shakespearean laughs with, “You have forgot the will”. (Sadly Banerjee is unable to resist the temptation to get laughs in silly places, so, when Brutus mentions Caesar, his Ghost gives a little wave and gets a laugh.) We are ready for an involving second half, then Banerjee misjudges the Cinna the poet scene, but even so…
The second half (more like a third) is frankly disappointing, though Teixeira is impressive in the confrontation with Cassius and Ella Dacres’ metal-voiced Octavius suggests the cold-hearted pragmatist he (she) will become. Unfortunately Baldwin and Robinson make less impression, tending in both cases to an excess of shouting. The battle scenes are, frankly, silly.
When watching something as odd as this, it helps sometimes to think, “Why?”. The casting of two female or one female, one non-binary as Brutus and Cassius has its reasons: the comradeship between the two becomes so much more moving. But why such a weird range of costumes, Cassius looking ultra-chic, Caesar in his shirt sleeves? Why, if you’re going to play the text pretty much at full length, don’t you spend some time learning to speak it? Why, above all, don’t you impose on it some different 21st century order?
It also calls in question the RSC’s role. Of course traditional productions take us back to the 1980s and 1990s and a change is welcome, but haven’t the audience the right to expect from one of the country’s premier companies intelligently focussed, smartly spoken productions which this, sadly, was not?
Runs until 17th June 2023, then continues touring.
