THEATER

Theater for a New Audience
Julius Caesar - Shakespeare

"With superb acoustics and less than 300 seats, the Scripps Mainstage at Polonsky Shakespeare Center is one of New York’s finest, intimate homes for modern classical theatre. Hear, see, and feel Shakespeare’s urgent political thriller blaze with life. An early incarnation of Ms. Cooper’s staging electrified audiences at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in 2017.

Now in 2019 for TFANA, in her Off-Broadway debut, Ms. Cooper re-imagines Julius Caesar.

When Julius Caesar conquers Gaul and expands Rome’s domain to Britain, the Senate, fearful of Caesar’s power, demands he give up his forces and return to Rome. But Caesar illegally marches his army across the Rubicon into Roman territory and civil war erupts. Caesar is victorious and the citizens offer him a crown which would make Caesar king with unrivaled political power for life. Cassius persuades Brutus, one of Caesar’s closest friends, to join a group of Conspirators and on the Ides of March, they assassinate Caesar, crying “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!”

Shakespeare presents multiple perspectives on whether the Conspirators were patriotic defenders or criminals. Rather than saving the Republic, the assassination plunges Rome into another civil war. Mark Antony joins forces with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, and conquers the Conspirators. The Roman Republic is replaced by the Roman Empire and power is consolidated under Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and Lepidus.

Shakespeare’s play is named The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. But who is the tragic character? Caesar, Brutus or, perhaps, the Republic of Rome?

With mesmerizing energy, Shana Cooper’s production explores what happens when violence is used to govern, and theatricalizes a mythic cycle that combines the political, psychological, and phantasmagorical… a cycle that has happened before and will happen again. Initially, the violence is rhetorical, but it then becomes a disease, a contagion, and a conflagration destroying what is loved the most."