Beware the Ides of March — and confusing interpretations of ‘Julius Caesar’

Austin Tichenor

Brutus (Anthony Cochrane, left) and Julius Caesar (Michael Sharon, right), Julius Caesar,
directed by Robert Richmond, Folger Theatre, 2014. Photo by Teresa Wood.
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.
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.
William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is about the death of a tyrant, but its title character is
not its central protagonist. Shakespeare’s play focuses instead on two of the leaders of the
conspiracy: Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus. 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. 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.”
Brutus (Anthony Cochrane, right) and Cassius (Louis Butelli), Julius Caesar, directed by
Robert Richmond, Folger Theatre, 2014. Photo by Jeff Malet.
Many productions give Julius Caesar a modern spin to
make the threat of Caesar’s autocracy more visceral. In his 1937 Mercury Theatre
production, Orson Welles gave the play a fascistic makeover that evoked both Mussolini’s
Italy and Nazi Germany. 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 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. 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. Except...an Acting Company
production presented by the Guthrie Theater in 2012 did exactly that without a fraction of
outrage.
Frank Howard. Julius Caesar. Print, 1828. Folger Shakespeare Library.
It’s appealing to recast the Roman Empire into something more recent and specific, but the
danger of characterizing Caesar as a World War II-era fascist or a recent/current American
president is that it can shift an audience’s focus and sympathy over to the victim. If
Shakespeare had written a play about the dangers of assassinating Queen Elizabeth, he’d
have been thrown in the Tower for even portraying such a thing, and audiences (and the
Crown) would have been too outraged to catch the play’s very clear warning about the
dangers and consequences of using violence to achieve political aims. Visually transforming
Caesar into a contemporary analogue risks weakening the play’s argument by tying the story
of Caesar too specifically to the modern moment, something the play already does by
making the Roman Empire a metaphor for all eras.
Perhaps most successful at avoiding this trap was Chicago’s Writers Theatre production,
which ran in the two months leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Dressed in
modern clothes with a Latino actor cast as Caesar, iPhone videos projected onto large
monitors, and occasional banners reading “Make Rome Great Again!”, the contemporary
parallels were present but not overpowering. More satisfyingly, adapters and co- directors
Michael Halberstam and Scott Parkinson focused the script more clearly and specifically on
Cassius and Brutus as dual protagonists. They also clarified the relationship between
Octavius and Marc Antony by bringing in language from Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra.
In an episode of my Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast, Parkinson (who also played
Cassius) discussed the play’s confusing elements from the viewer’s perspective, especially
after the assassination when “suddenly there are all these new characters that get
introduced and they have all these names that you’re trying to follow ...The story you start
with, which to me is the story of Brutus and Cassius, gets a little diffused and a little lost.”
Parkinson’s and Halberstam’s adaptation kept the focus where it should be: On the
unintended consequences and personal tragedy of Shakespeare’s dual protagonists.
Without changing any of Shakespeare’s words, Brutus and Cassius ran on to each other’s
swords, ending their journey — and the play — together.
Another historical assassin, John Wilkes Booth, famously shouted “Sic semper tyrannis!” —
“Thus always to tyrants!” — as he leapt to the stage after shooting Abraham Lincoln at
Ford’s Theatre. The moral of Shakespeare’s tragedy, which reveals assassination’s grievous
repercussions for both individuals and empires, might well be “ita semper interfectoribus”
— “Thus always to assassins.”
⇒ Related: The story behind the Ides of March