The Royal Shakespeare Company's revival of Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Julius Caesar, starring Harriet Walter, is touring secondary schools and proving so thrilling it held a hall full of teenagers in pin-drop silence.
The production, which originally ran at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012, is being performed at Ormiston Bushfield Academy in Peterborough. The auditorium is a repurposed hall with ascending plastic seating resembling an amphitheatre, stripped bare so the show could pass for a school production in appearance.
Prison setting frames Shakespeare
The audience is in Peterborough, but also in Rome and in a women's prison. Shakespeare is framed within an incarceration story, with interruptions from guards and prison protocols. Harriet Walter reprises her role as Brutus, and Jackie Clune returns as Julius Caesar. Leah Harvey, who played the soothsayer in the 2016 revival, now takes on the role of Mark Anthony.
Bunny Christie's institutional minimalism in set design fits Lloyd's setup of a prison drama society performing the play. Actors wear similar grey, state-issue outfits, and small TV screens flash CCTV surveillance footage and summaries of forthcoming scenes in blaring letters.
Teens captivated by violent drama
The history play's themes of justice, power, populism and violence begetting violence resonate today. Initially, there is shuffling, giggling and nudging among school pupils in the opening scenes. But from the moment Caesar is stabbed by Brutus's conspirators, with Clune making it graphic though bloodless, the air in the room changes.
The production holds the audience captive with propulsive action and lo-fi, modern elements that never simplify. Red rubber gloves stand for bloodied hands, freeze-frames and sudden blackouts come from Zeynep Kepekli's atmospheric lighting design, and electronic music builds adrenaline, from Stormzy's Big for Your Boots to a Fatboy Slim remix of Renegade Master and last year's hit Partii. The violence could just as well be about youth gang culture, with its cycle of grudges and revenge.
Strong performances and modern touches
Walter, elegantly androgynous, makes a clear-eyed idealist in Brutus, motivated to preserve republican freedoms. Clune is fantastically strutting in a leather coat. Shakespeare's women are strong, with Portia (Shalisha James-Davis) demanding Brutus divulge his secrets, and Calpurnia (Kosar Ali) appearing as imperious as her husband, accompanied by a childlike soothsayer (Siân Stephens) who runs creepy circles on a tricycle.
As blood rises, turntables are wheeled out as part of the war machine, with soldiers pumped up for the fight. Executions are carried out with hoods and plastic guns, accompanied by the sound of real shots. It has the feel of a history play through a Tarantino wringer, yet faithful to its original spirit.
By the time Brutus is overcome, there is pin-drop silence among the audience. The production brings Julius Caesar excitingly alive, and as a first encounter with Shakespeare or theatre itself, it is hard to beat. The schools tour runs until 23 October, then at the Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 5-28 November.
