From an original cast of some forty characters, the company has dropped and adapted and doubled roles to fit a cast of ten terribly talented Australian actors. Costumed in relentlessly modern business wear, striding about streamlined chairs and a single rotting Corinthian column, the characters present a powerful, stark, political parable.
The essential core of the text, the personal and moral struggle of the protagonist, Marcus Brutus, played by Colin Moody, is thrown into relief by the bare stage and bleak sound scape. Moody inhabits a sensitive and sympathetic Brutus, who truly believes he is working for the good of his nation.
Caesar himself appears in only three scenes, but Alex Menglet dominates each one, egotistical, tyrannical, capricious and vulnerable by turns.
The stand out performance, however, was Kate Mulvaney’s. Mulvaney, who helped director Peter Evans adapt the text, plays Caius Cassius. This is not simply a woman playing a man, as Rebecca Bower plays a young slave Lucius, as well as Octavius, Caesar’s pubescent heir. Mulvaney’s Cassius had been recast as a woman, a lean, hungry, intelligent, powerful, patriotic woman.
Katie-Jean Harding plays Portia, wife and partner of Marcus Brutus, assertive and emotionally compelling. Daniel Frederiksen is stunningly subtle as Marc Antony, claiming ignorance and innocence and he drums up violence and revolt.
The play’s political lessons are eternally recognisable and relevant, as are certain turns of phrase: though I knew this play was the origin of “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” I had forgotten it is the origin of “Let slip the dogs of war” as well as “It was all Greek to me.”
Peter Evans and his creative team give us the Julius Caesar for our times, beautifully acted, superbly designed, rife with irony, wit and pathos.
Keep an eye out for more of the 2012 Bell Shakespeare season, including Macbeth and The Duchess of Malfi, via their website.
