Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

A CONVERSATION
WITH THE DIRECTOR
Last fall on his visit to CST to continue
his casting process, director Jonathan
Munby met with the staff to talk about his
vision for his production of Julius Caesar.
Why did you decide to direct Julius Caesar here—
Q and now?
AThe question I ask in approaching any Shakespeare play
is this: How can I allow the audience to be as close to it
as I possibly can? What does it mean for them, coming to see
this play in 2013 in this theater? How can I release the play
for them?
This play is about power, about the misuse of power. It’s
also about fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of misrule, fear of
losing those things we hold priceless, such as liberty. How
thrilling it would be to do this play and bring it into the present
tense—so that we tell this story not in ancient Rome but
as if we are seeing it through the lens of contemporary political
America. There was something about the immediacy
of the American election looming that heightens this story in
a really interesting way. As a theater-maker, I have to make
my own connections in order to tell the story. I’m interested
in where the writer was when he or she wrote it and what
they were responding to in their world. And I have to find
something as relevant to me, or as interesting to me.
Q
To an audience not yet familiar with your
work, how would you describe your approach
to these works?
Language is at the forefront, always. The word comes
A first, but what I try to do is find an emotional truth. If you
dare to go there, these plays become extraordinarily resonant,
and personal, as opposed to being pageants about a time and
a place that we no longer connect with. Real people in real
situations. It’s understanding first, I suppose, the London that
Shakespeare was writing in, and the political debate that was
going on. And then it’s transporting that story into our present—
and the fantasy of ’What if?’ It’s a terrifying fact, is it not, that
history repeats itself and that we don’t learn from our mistakes.
These stories seem to be on an endless kind of cycle. The
A PLAY COMES TO LIFE
question I want the audience to come away with is: What is
this all for? Why on earth did we go through this? What have
we achieved from this?
Let’s start talking about some of the key charac-
Q ters in Caesar
I think Shakespeare was working out how to write Ham-
A let as he wrote Brutus. I think those questions, those interior
questions, that crisis of self about ’Who am I?’ ’What do
I believe in?’ feels to me like a prototype Hamlet. That’s what
makes Brutus a really interesting character and why it takes
so long to persuade him to join the cause. He’s torn. I think he
believes in Caesar to a certain extent, but he’s also fearful of
his potential if he’s crowned.
Antony seems to be much more invested in the current
regime and is torn apart, affected deeply by the assassination—a
real believer inspired then to lead the loyalists’
charge and join forces with Octavius. But I think there are
From leFT: kevin GuDahl as BruTus anD JaCk rylanD as Caesar’s GhosT
in CsT’s 2003 proDuCTion oF Julius Caesar,
DireCTeD By BarBara Gaines.
photo by Liz Lauren
www chicagoshakespeare com 37