There is something timeless about the play that keeps drawing audiences to it. Is it the story? Is it the Shakespearean language? Is it the elaborate staging? Or is it the acting? On a recent visit to Australia, I found that Julius Caesar was being staged at the Sydney Opera House and decided to see it, hoping to get my questions answered.
I had first encountered the play in ninth grade at St Patrick’s High School in Karachi. Every student was required to memorise certain lines of the play and recite them in front of the class. My assignment was Antony’s funeral oration.
A few years later I had the pleasure of discovering a treasure trove of shields, helmets, and swords in an older cousin’s house. He had been cast in the role of Caesar in a local production and wore a purple robe and a green wreath. A younger cousin and I engaged in a jousting match with the paraphernalia of war. Decades later, I happened to see a film in which Charlton Heston gives Antony’s funeral oration. But this was the first time I was going to watch the play on stage.
My mind went back to the Forum in Rome which we had visited a few years ago. Among the ruined columns, there was a small muddy grave strewn with flowers. The sign read: “Julius Caesar.” I was stunned. About 45 minutes away there was a splendid mausoleum which housed the mortal remains of Emperor Augustus, Caesar’s adopted son. What a contrast!
The theater in Sydney was packed even though the furniture on the stage was bland, the characters wore contemporary street clothes, not togas, an African man who could pass for a body double of Barack Obama’s was cast as Caesar, and a woman was cast as Mark Antony
The theater in Sydney was packed even though the furniture on the stage was bland, the characters wore contemporary street clothes, not togas, an African man who could pass for a body double of Barack Obama’s was cast as Caesar, and a woman was cast as Mark Antony. The play began slowly and I thought I would leave it during the intermission.
The reviewers had panned it. The Sydney Morning Herald said the play’s great speeches “had their meaning mangled, beauty pulverised and power crushed”. The Age described the production as “an utter traducement of Shakespeare” and suggested readers give the play a miss. The Australian said: “The production is lopsided and ungainly.”
Something on the stage drew me back to the play. The characters started saying those famous lines of Shakespeare’s. The soothsayer warns Caesar not to head to the Senate on the “Ides of March.”So does his wife. Caesar says, “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” Then be begins walking toward the Capitol.
The conspirators are arguing among themselves when Cassius says, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.”Once in the Senate, Caesar is attacked by the senators. The final blow comes from Brutus, his best friend, evoking the repartee, “Et tu, Brute,” after which Caesar dies.
The play moves on to Caesar’s funeral. Brutus provides an eloquent defense: “If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:–Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”
And then Mark Antony rises to speak. What follows is the defining moment of the play. The oration, given by Sara Zwangobani, swells and ebbs with symphonic grandeur. It began with these words: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.”
Suddenly the curtain falls. It’s intermission. If there were any like me who had intended to leave the play during the intermission, they had all changed their mind. The theater remained packed to the very end.
When the play resumed, Antony said: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on; ‘Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii: Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made: Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d; And as he pluck’d his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar follow’d it, As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no; For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel: Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! This was the most unkindest cut of all; For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms, Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey’s statua, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.”
And, a bit later, he administered the coup de grace: “Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honourable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not ,That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Brutus is;”
Gently, quietly, and surely, Antony’s oration had the intended effect. The people of Rome rose in revolt against the conspirators. They died, one by one, often felled on their own swords.
As I left the theater, I was transported to Rome in 44 BC and overwhelmed. There were no obvious heroes or villains in the play. Even though he had thrice turned down a kingly crown, Caesar had harbored imperial ambitions. He wanted the people of Rome to crown him. So he was killed. But those who killed him also died in the end. And despite killing Caesar, they failed to save the republic. The Roman Empire was born when Octavius became the Emperor Augustus.
Caesar does not say much in the play but remains the central character. The man who speaks the most lines is Brutus. But neither Caesar nor Brutus make the most dramatic impact on the audience. That honor is left to Antony about whom Shakespeare would go on to write another play involving Cleopatra.
Published in Daily Times, November 27th 2018.