Claudia & Nathaniel Herz Jardine, in conversation, review William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, directed by Khalil Qualls at Cloisters Studio in Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre, Tuesday 20 August 2024.
Claudia: JMO Theatrics’ production of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar may be the most political play you see this year. Yes, it contains factions and rivalry and oratory, but how the production does what it is doing might be the most political aspect. With a budget of three thousand dollars and an unstated number of hours of labour, this “two-hander” Julius Caesar challenges the common model of Shakespeare productions in Aotearoa.
Nathaniel: Three actors perform the whole play on a traverse stage. We had our tickets checked at the door by Marcus Brutus/Caius Cassius (played by Josiah Morgan) wearing a simple white tunic with UV paint dripping out of his eyes, like a robot that was bleeding glow paint. A Roman glam cyborg.
C: The set design (by Matthew Lang) consisted of doorways made from plywood covered in foil at each end of the traverse, a third empty doorway near one end and a shrine. All of the plywood was covered in graffiti, some of it Julius Caesar-related and some of it relevant to contemporary politics.
N: Elisa Jones had on a similar costume to Josiah, and Khalil Qualls, a third actor/technician/costume designer/director, wore a t-shirt that read “CREW” and theatre blacks. On the side of the stage sat an intriguing chess set. The programme noted that we would see a live staging of a game between Morphy and NN from 1856, a King’s Gambit, but I’ll talk more about that later.
C: Once the actors begin, it’s clear that there’s no dead air in this production. The swaps in character keep the piece moving at a quick pace. Actors argue and plead with themselves, and the changes are perplexingly slick for a “pre-professional” production (as described in the programme).
N: The roles are divided between the two actors in an un-intuitive yet brilliant fashion. Josiah Morgan plays Marcus Brutus and Caius Cassius, while Elisa Jones plays Marc Antony and Julius Caesar and Octavian (among others). Intense dialogues are handled by just one actor.
C: And because the action is happening in traverse the cast feel so close to the audience. The audience gets wrapped up in the action at crucial points and starts shouting along with Khalil Qualls as The Chorus. We all want Marc Antony to read the will!
N: Julius Caesar is all about mob psychology – how people get taken in by political speech, and all their passions and instincts get hi-jacked. While Elisa Jones as Marc Anthony is performing the funeral oration for Julius Caesar (a perfect bullshit politician speech), I look across the traverse to see the rest of the audience, nodding and grinning.
C: And then you feel validated by the audience reaction happening across the room from you, which you wouldn’t get if the play was in proscenium, right?
N: We were taken in, we were the mob. And I really felt why Marc Anthony’s speech is so much more effective than Brutus’ speech. Brutus tries to bully the audience into silence. You know,
Who is here so
vile that will not love his country? If any, speak;
for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.
No one speaks so no one is offended. Whereas Marc Antony gets the mob riled up, getting us to shout like “the will, the will, the will!”
C: Because there are so few actors, the play leaves the audience with a lot to do. The one place in this production where a little more guidance would have been nice is the time jump. The only indication we get that the action is now occurring four years later on a military campaign is just one actor shouting, “Four years later!” All of a sudden Josiah Morgan, as both Brutus and Cassius is talking field tactics, with nothing on set to indicate a change.
N: Whereas other limitations were very well-handled. Instead of a battle scene they had a chess game, and what a game! Morphy vs NN, 1856. It’s very much a game of twists and turns and a bit of a nail biter with some big risks taken. The King’s Gambit is all about sacrificing early and trying to overwhelm your opponent with a positional advantage. And here you’ve got Julius Caesar out of the game early, Brutus and Cassius with an advantage, but what does Marc Anthony do? He exposes himself and takes risks and he wins.
C: Some viewers may find the chess distracting.
N: Well, only those who are overjoyed by the chess. So I wouldn’t worry about it.
C: You don’t think that the Venn diagram of “Fans of Julius Caesar” and “Fans of chess” is a circle?
N: It could be a circle. Yeah, it could be a circle.
C: I think some opening night nerves may have ever-so-slightly hampered the two-handing of Octavius Caesar and Marc Antony by Elisa Jones in some scenes before the chess game representing The Battle of Philippi.
N: A small weakness. Octavius Caesar wasn’t fully developed compared with Marc Antony. Did you find his glam role a little stereotypical? I think it’s the only moment of the production that felt forced.
C: Because at that point, historically, Octavius Caesar is nowhere near being Augustus. He is still a scrappy general who has been battling way out in the provinces, miles away from the glamour of Rome. Full credit to Elisa Jones, as Octavius Caesar, strutting down the traverse with so much confidence, but with no props or costumes to indicate the change I think the audience was a little lost as to how to react.
N: The challenge is that Octavius Caesar is similar in character to Brutus. He’s less mature, more petulant, but he has that same stolid sensibleness about him. And I imagine they were worried about the physicality of those two characters being too similar. So they overcompensated, instead of trying to find something that makes this character distinct.
C: Also, the relationship between Octavius Caesar and Marc Antony is quite a jealous one. The simmering jealousy gets lost because of the speed at which the actor needs to move. But I really cannot understate that for the budget and the number of people involved, this production is very successful.
N: It was so successful perhaps Julius Caesar should ALWAYS be a two-person play. I think back to other productions I’ve seen and gosh, all those people really overcrowded the stage. Again, look at Marc Antony’s funeral oration. Just her and us – I never wanted anyone else on stage.
C: Yeah, would have spoiled it.
N: My other highlight was Josiah Morgan’s Marcus Brutus/Caius Cassius argument. With only one actor on stage, my focus was completely controlled. In a standard production there is always the option of looking away from the speaker at someone else, which dilutes the power of the scene, because the other actors are standing around sort of trying to react without stealing the spotlight.
C: But that often happens in pre-professional Shakespeare, right?
N: Right, whereas here, it was just Josiah Morgan working with this amazing pace, jumping back and forth between the two characters with really distinct physicalities. And also managing to really feel every line to his core. It was a really pacey production.
C: One hour and forty-five minutes.
N: They cut in all the right places. This production just played the bangers and then called it. That’s so rare, to come out of the theatre still invigorated from the best moments.
C: The fact that this production had a budget of three thousand dollars plus the hours of labour makes me honestly a little bit uncomfortable. The production was so engaging for just two actors and an all-rounder director/stage manager/technician/costume designer/chorus/crew person. I enjoyed watching it a lot, and the actors were clearly working really hard. I felt no compulsion to grab the cast members by the shoulders and ask, “Do you even know what your lines mean?” Seeing three actors do Julius Caesar so well shocked me. Maybe all plays should have less actors in them? What would this do to theatre in Aotearoa? Maybe there should be fewer actors and crew, but they should have a full-time workload rather than a large cast with lots of people doing small amounts of work who cannot actually afford to live on that rate stretched over the production time.
N: Yeah! I’ve seen productions of 50+ cast members that, compared to this production, were abysmal. Who needs that?
C: A direct challenge to the belief that it is essential to have a naked man in your Shakespeare production.
N: So the blue and gold crowd can gasp and pretend they’re seeing something subversive?
C: Oh yes. I’d much rather have a really great, small cast do a Shakespeare twice or maybe three or four times a year, than the one summer Shakespeare production in the park that often makes me want to grit my teeth.
N: Absolutely. This thing was really, really fantastic.
William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ran at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre from Tuesday 20 – Saturday 24 August 2024.
Flat City Field Notes 