Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Q Can you say more about what you mentioned
before, about the power of rhetoric in this
world—and in ours?
I’ve been working in South Africa recently, and they are
A fearful that there is no leader to inspire the next generation.
There is no next Mandela. The language in this play is
staggering. We think very negatively sometimes about politicians
and their language, but there’s a case to be made in this
play, as well, for a need of language, a need for our politicians
to be great orators, to inspire us.
Q Placing your production in contemporary “Rome,
DC,” you might have made some of the senators
and conspirators roles for women Why did you
decide not to?
Staging a contemporary production of the play, I cer-
A tainly could have turned some male roles into women.
But I think Shakespeare is doing something quite specific
about the male/female conflict in this play. The women have
to fight hard to be heard. Brutus’s
wife Portia harms herself
in order to get her husband’s
attention. The maleness of the
body politic, the ideal image
of what they want their leader
to be, is at the center of it.
That in mind, I chose to cast
a woman as the Soothsayer—a fascinating character who
is in touch with an otherness, who can see the future. Who
warns Caesar. What is it for this woman to challenge this
leader? We’ve been fantasizing about a possible story for
her—as someone perhaps who lost somebody very close to
her in the recent war. Grief has pushed her over the edge—
and she’s done with death. She’ll become the conscience,
or the heartbeat of the story, if you like. Lindsay Jones, our
composer, is writing a lament that she will sing. Woven
throughout, sometimes in counterpoint to the play’s action,
I want it to haunt us.
Q How will staging this play in CST’s Courtyard
Theater influence your production?
You’ve got this great thrust and all these entrances
A through the audience. I want to wrap the action of the
play around the audience and pull them inside it—like we’re
inside the battlefield itself. I’ve never seen Caesar at the Globe,
but I can imagine it being a really exciting play to see there.
Shakespeare is doing something
quite specific about the male/female
conflict in this play. The women
have to fight hard to be heard.
A PLAY COMES TO LIFE
This play in particular was about those real people standing at
the Globe in front of those actors as they said these lines. And
it makes doing this play in this theater really exciting because
you as an audience are so close to it. It’s about these people
watching it as much as it’s about the people in the world of
the play.
Q Have you made changes to the script?
I’ve made some cuts to tighten the structure and the
A story. And I’ve cut pieces together and across each
other. We can do it in film, so let’s do it in theater. This play has
always struck me not as a five-act structure, which all Shakespeare’s
plays are, but actually as a filmic, three-act structure.
You have the plot at the beginning, the conspiracy: Act I. You
have the assassination and Caesar’s funeral: Act 2. Then you
have the aftermath: Act 3.
To me it seemed important to cut some of these characters
out of a very long name role call—and to strengthen others.
Lucius, for example, Brutus’s
aide—almost like a son, the
son he never had—simply
disappears at some point
from Shakespeare’s text.
Well, let’s be braver than
that and see this relationship
through—and into the war.
Q Lastly, what are your thoughts about being an
’Englishman in a strange land’ and directing this
play in particular?
I’m a Brit. I’m very aware of being an outsider coming
A to America, choosing this incredibly contentious context
for this play. My government, as well, is very good at keeping
us in a state of fear, and it seems to me that it’s this idea of fear
that’s at the core of this play. I want to be as balanced as I can
about how we view each of these characters. I can let them
and their text define who they are for the audience rather than
overlaying too much. I’m very, very conscious of each choice I
make, especially as an outsider. But it’s also a privilege being
an outsider. I have an objectivity about this country and about
its politics that perhaps you as natives don’t. All I hope to do
really is hold a mirror up to where you are now and to show
every side of that and hopefully in a balanced way. ✪
www chicagoshakespeare com 39