Ancient Rome doesn’t seem quite the same in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new “Julius Caesar”: Reset in modern-day Africa, with an all-black cast, it opens with much of the ensemble milling around onstage, to the strains of live, polyrhythmic music — suggesting this is a Shakespeare tragedy to which you can dance.
But Gregory Doran’s staging has more serious things on its mind. Inspired by a collection of the Bard’s plays that circulated among prisoners of South Africa’s Robben Island — where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated — it delivers a searing, visceral take on this violent political drama.
The play takes on a fresh urgency as set on a continent that’s seen no shortage of dictators and violent uprisings. Silently observing the proceedings throughout is the Soothsayer (Theo Ogundipe), depicted as a mysterious, white-painted shaman. A giant statue of Caesar, turned away from us, looms over the action, at one point toppled like Saddam Hussein’s. During the military clashes that follow the assassination, prisoners are killed by igniting a tire placed around their necks, South African style.
The superb cast performs with uncommon lucidity, even if their accents combined with Shakespeare’s verse sometimes makes the listening difficult. Cyril Nri brings a ferocious intensity to the “lean and hungry” Cassius, while Ray Fearon delivers a charismatic, highly physical turn as Marc Antony, his forced good cheer upon confronting Caesar’s killers giving way to rage as he shouts, “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!”
Akintayo Akinbode’s original score adds more African flavor to the proceedings, as do Michael Vale’s set and costumes, from black togas to sharp-pressed military uniforms.
This “Julius Caesar” is no stuffy historical drama. Rendered with a bracing ferocity, it reminds us that its themes are as freshly and sadly immediate as ever.