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Earlier this year, a New York production of ‘Julius Caesar’ got into hot water for depicting Caesar as Trump, assassinated by women and people of colour. I’m not saying I’d ever expect the RSC to resort to blunt political parallels, but Angus Jackson’s toga-clad production is so inoffensive it’s hard to see much present-day relevance at all.
There’s no possible doubt that we’re in Ancient Rome on this trad, column-filled stage, with lines declaimed to the audience so you can catch every word. It feels as though Jackson is constantly terrified we’ll misunderstand something, opting for cartoony clarity over ambiguity or psychological depth. Accordingly, instead of just being suspicious of Mark Antony, the senators keep their daggers out and look like they’re as likely to stab him as shake his hand. Brutus doesn’t just get angry with his friend and co-conspirator Cassius, he gets about two seconds from murdering him.
Some scenes still work their magic, especially James Corrigan’s literally rabble-rousing turn as Mark Antony. His speech whipping up Rome’s people in defence of Caesar is compelling for the sense that he hardly believes a word of it.
Elsewhere, things drag painfully. Alex Waldmann’s Brutus is an unconvincing lead, earnest and puppyish, rather than bold and principled. Andrew Woodall’s Caesar is distant, proud and preening. Martin Hutson’s Cassius is better, a highly strung muscle man packed with testosterone-fuelled energy. But even broad performances like this feel a bit lost on the Barbican’s monumental stage.
What’s lost, too, is the sense of the play’s volatility, of the simmering anxiety it contains about how quickly countries can be stirred from order to chaos. Those monumental pillars never come crashing down, more’s the pity.