RSC Julius Caesar review - Thrilling theatre with a powerful message

The line between art and activism is not always easy to draw. Many great works carry unmistakeable political messages; others are content to serve simply as tremendous entertainment; others hint and suggest, letting the audience work out what they may be about.

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar can be interpreted in various ways. This production however is a piece of overt activism. The result is 90 minutes of intensely powerful theatre, but whether that makes it a great production of Julius Caesar is open to question.

This production was first staged in 2012. It was groundbreaking then and still startles today. Every part is played by a woman. The conceit is that it takes place in a prison and is performed by its prisoners. Indeed, it has been taken to prisons, with the cast and creative team working with women imprisoned at HMP New Hall. It has also recently toured schools in deprived parts of the country; it is hard to imagine a more thrilling introduction to Shakespeare.

There is here the express intention of confronting issues of social justice, most obviously the incarceration of women. Most women serving a sentence in Britain have committed no violent crime. Those who have committed violent crimes have often been the victims of violence perpetrated by men. This is all worth not just talking about but doing something about.

And it makes sense to use this play to raise these issues. A group of men disagree with another man. So they kill him. But this just leads to more killing. The violence seems emptier and more pointless as the play goes on. Women are inevitably caught up in it and suffer as a result.

Jackie Clune plays Julius Caesar as preening and vain, but with a little warmth undercutting the tyranny. However, the play is more about Brutus, Caesar’s friend who ends up leading the conspiracy against him and inflicts the final wound. As was the case in 2012, Brutus is played by the great Harriet Walter, who can turn from self-possession to internal dishevelment in an instant. She has an innate nobility, which props up one of history’s great traitors. You’d be hard-pressed to call her Brutus a bad person; but how else might we describe a cold-blooded killer whose actions bring about waves of bloodshed?

To its credit, this production does spend some time with Brutus’s guilt and turmoil. But this is a play that asks questions, whereas this production seems more interested in answers. This has a flattening effect; for example, Mark Antony’s great speech is delivered with little of the irony and cunning that made it so persuasive. There are moments of inspired theatre when prison guards intervene, appearing to halt the performance; but these do not necessarily serve the play. It ends with cri de cœur, calling the audience to action, leaving no doubt as to the show’s intention.

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Kate Pakenham, this Julius Caesar is a statement. We can ask whether this does justice to the play, but this is a statement that needs to be made, and here it is made emphatically.

Until November 28. Visit rsc.org.uk or call 01789 331111 to book.