JULIUS CAESAR. Director: Fred Abrahamse. Cast: Fiona Ramsay, Marcel Meyer, Matthew Baldwin, Tailyn Ramsamy, Nkosinathi Mazwai and Thinus Viljoen. Artscape Arena.
BEVERLEY BROMMERT reviews
Fluidity pervades this remarkable staging of Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar, as identities and periods continuously mutate to confirm how little changes with the passage of time. Not even the set stays constant, as it evolves from a cleansing Roman bath into a pit awash with blood – a potent metaphor of defilement through murderous intrigue.
Each metamorphosis of personae is achieved so artfully that audience attention is held during the changes effected in full view. Nor is the progress of the plot interrupted, since the actors continue delivering Shakespeare’s vivid script as costumes are shed or donned. This is a tour de force of note.
Simultaneous casting places six actors in a variety of roles belonging to three different eras ranging unchronologically from Elizabethan England, to the fall of the Roman Republic, to the present day. Their common denominator is political turbulence fuelled by social malaise, dissatisfaction with an existing order, and lust for power resulting in the rise and fall of leaders, a volatility mirrored by the perpetual flux of the action as it shifts from epoch to epoch, character to character and mood to mood.
Dexterity and elegance
Such an approach makes considerable demands on those enacting the work: not only are dexterity and elegance required in disrobing and dressing unobtrusively while sustaining the threads of dialogue, but also a high degree of versatility in portraying very diverse characters with equal conviction.
Fiona Ramsay is stellar as the eponymous lead, doubling as a majestic Queen Elizabeth I. Both Caesar and the Tudor monarch were subject to the anxiety attendant on absolute rule (that well-worn dictum about an uneasy head wearing the crown comes to mind). Faced with a crisis, she survived; he did not.
As for the contemporary world, there is no shortage of would-be and de facto dictators to alarm the thinking man …
Much of the dramatic power in this work is derived from the dilemma of Brutus, whose affection for Caesar is at odds with what he perceives as his duty to uphold the Republic by eliminating the Roman leader. Marcel Meyer brings a brooding intensity to the role, contrasting with cool calculation in the Elizabethan age when, as the debonair Essex, his ambition proves his undoing.
Every cast member has an opportunity to shine
Under Abrahamse’s even-handed direction, every cast member has an opportunity to shine – and does. Tailyn Ramsamy impresses in his articulate delivery of Mark Antony’s subversive funeral oration for Caesar; Matthew Baldwin interprets his trio of roles with sensitivity and intelligence, especially that of Cassius; Nkosinathi Mazwai’s clear diction does full justice to Shakespeare’s text, and young Thinus Viljoen’s Portia is authentic and moving.
Pleasing ensemble apart, the physical staging of this Julius Caesar is exemplary. The set’s functional austerity facilitates mobility of context, with lighting designed by Faheem Bardien intensifying the plot’s drama. Meyer’s costumes, more sombre than luminous as befits the Stygian plot, are meticulously true to period, in particular those of the opulent Elizabethan era.
Fascinating and thought-provoking in equal measure, A&M’s take on Julius Caesar sends its audience home intellectually enriched if somewhat sobered by the salutary implications of its message: this is far from a mere period piece.
What: Julius Caesar review
Where and when: Artscape from 22 to 31 May 2025
Julius Caesar tickets: Webtickets
WS
