Julius Caesar
It has been a long time since I last saw a production of this play, and one of the things that I had forgotten is that amongst all the assassinations and righteous indignations, was how blackly funny it was!
I wonder if choosing a Roman setting also allows further consideration of issues that might seem completely unacceptable if they took place in an English court or seen as a comment on a current monarch’s reign with the relatively sympathetic portrait of the plotters of an assassination not being immediately treasonable!
There was an interesting comment made by Patrick Reilly from Glasgow University in his introduction to the play in an edition of complete Shakespeare works which I have that perhaps the whole key to understanding the play is provided in the first scene where a cobbler amongst a group of rowdy peasants celebrating Ceasar’s triumphant return to Rome responds to questioning about why they are not at work with the quip that he is wearing their shoes out so he will find himself with more work. Reilly says that this shed light on Cassius and Brutus and the interesting central question of the play – are they leading their band of plotters through the streets for noble reasons or simply for their own gain?
I would add that this initial quip could be joined with Titinius’s final speech on finding Cassius having killed himself thinking the battle was lost, but by his actions causing the defeat of Brutus. Titinus asks Cassius’s dead body why he has misconstrued everything and brought about their downfall. Both of these quotes define the audience’s response to the characters, not just whether they were acting for the best reasons or for personal gain, but also whether a ‘good’ person can perform terrible acts for the ‘right’ reasons.
I also like the way that Cassius and Brutus at the opening help to illustrate the adage of “keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer”. Brutus is more titled and closer to Julius Caesar than Cassius is, and this itself may actually be the cause of Caesar’s assassination. Brutus would likely not change his opinions of the justness of rule by Julius, or any other, Caesar if he we given patronage or not, whereas Cassius seems much more driven in his plotting against this particular Caesar by the anger at having been spurned and left without power or influence due to Julius’s lack of trust in him. Perhaps if Cassius had been given a relatively powerful position in Caesar’s senate he would have found it in his best interests to ensure that Julius Caesar remained in his position. Cassius and Mark Anthony are very similar in that respect – Mark Anthony is in just that privileged position that Cassius yearns for (this also raises ideas about how close the sycophant can be to turning into the plotter).
Brutus however is against the whole idea of the need for an all powerful Caesar figure at all, along with the temptation to abuse power that such a position brings. Julius Caesar himself, as much as Brutus, appears to feel conflicted by the power he is being given by the vested interests that surround him, as much to ensure their continuing advancement as to praise his glories - as shown in the reports of his repeated turning down of the crown that Mark Anthony keeps attempting to present him with (thereby turning the republic into a monarchy just by another name) at the opening of the play.
The whole play is really Marcus Brutus’s tragedy more than Caesar’s however as he almost willingly deludes himself into believing that if he removes the figurehead he will destroy the entire system, if he can just appeal to the huddled masses. Unfortunately he only succeeds in removing a relatively moderate Caesar and replacing him (after momentarily being elevated by the crowd into becoming the successor himself) with a triumvirate of more pragmatic Caesars.
He also loses his wife Portia to grief at his failed coup. I did wonder whether Portia in her wish to be a full partner in her marriage with Brutus and therefore to know of the plot, and then the scene which follows later as she seems conflicted about sending one of their servants to Rome, perhaps to prevent the assassination but in the end just to pointlessly report back to her on what is happening there, bears some comparison to Lady Macbeth, except of course that she does not get her ‘hands dirty’ to the same extent (Brutus himself is the person who ends up elbow deep in Caesar’s blood compared to the rather meek and willingly manipulated Macbeth, letting his wife do all the difficult work for him).
Caesar also proves prone to superstitions, though in the way that he still convinces himself to go to his fate at the senate after receiving ominous portents there is also shown in a blackly funny manner the way that superstitions can be ignored and interpreted in the way that best pleases the individuals disposition and twisted to excuse their actions – so it can be seen as a terrible warning that justifies an action or an easily dismissed aberration dependent on what Caesar was planning to do anyway!
This plays rather well into the emotionalism that Mark Anthony displays in the manipulation of the crowd after Caesar’s assassination. Taking the crowd from praising Brutus for a heroic act to baying for his blood is quite a feat but he manages it in perhaps the funniest scene of the play! The way that he praises Brutus and his accomplices in a way that only manages to make the crowd angrier at them, introduces the last Will and Testament of Caesar to the crowd then ignores it in order to pore over every wound on the corpse for maximum emotional impact, and then reintroduces the Will in an “Oh, I forgot! Caesar willed cash pay outs for every Roman Citizen!” manner is absolutely hysterical!
I found the most interesting aspects of that scene to be wondering whether Caesar’s Will was real or not, likely not since after the assassination there are reports that Anthony has gone straight to his house (likely to write the Will) and then returned straight to the senate. Then if it is a created Will does that suggest that this plan was something Anthony had prepared for in case of an assassination? It makes his grief seem a lot less genuine if that is the case, although this issue is commendably left unresolved.
It is also a very cynical scene with regard to the general population – looking for someone who is seen to be their better and who seems to have all the answers to rule over them, no matter how much they might pretend that they wish for all men to be equal, and to share equal responsibility for the society as a whole. They would rather have a figurehead that they can either idolise or demonise to take full responsibility for them and let them indulge in the full extent of their joy or anger at a situation without having to feel any responsibility themselves (best shown in the minor character Popilius casually wishing Brutus best of luck in the plot before going to talk with Caesar and then to watch the assassination from the sidelines)
The scene which follows Anthony’s rousing speech in the forum as Octavius, Anthony and Lepidus are sitting together and deciding who is to be killed in purges following their seizing of power, and bartering over which particular relatives to sacrifice in order to prove their allegiance, is a sobering sign of their pragmatism, especially if it is set against the naïve assurances of Brutus earlier in the play that only Caesar needs to be killed in their plot and no one else needs to be hurt.
As with Romeo and Juliet there is an interesting reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius as the battle lines harden again and everyone accepts their assigned role in the final act. The following suicide of Cassius after mistakenly thinking that all is lost reminds a little of the end of Romeo & Juliet or Richard II – the audience could so easily see the action having a better, even joyous, outcome but the finality of the death of one character is the fixed, irreversible point that contrasts with all the plots and plans, the hopes and fears, that the characters get so caught up in. Often there is a sort of mid-point premonitionary death (Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, for example, or the murder of Duncan in Macbeth or Julius Caesar himself. The ghost of Hamlet’s father plays a similar role too, just placed at the very start, rather than the mid-point, of the play) that makes the characters aware of their inevitable fate, the deaths hitting on an emotional and thematic but not devastating level. Then there is a sort of catalytic domino effect triggered by the death of Romeo or Cassius, truly significant figures in the drama, which causes the collapse of every other significant character at the climax.
On to the adaptation itself. It was interesting to note that this was the first time voiceovers were used for the soliloquys. They worked very nicely, especially in first one from Cassius in which the other characters disappear off into the background while the camera gets into a tighter and tighter close up, until just the eyes remain! The whole production was nicely staged too – perhaps the thunder effects were a little overdone, but they add to the heightened paranoia of the characters at that point too.
Measure For Measure
Or “an eye for an eye”.
I loved this play, and the production of it is one of the first fully successful ones of the series so far, with a lot of beautiful and evocative sets and continually interesting staging of the action. It also feels like one of the first productions that features an excellent all round cast with no poor performances or wrong notes from anyone. Plus it is also another darkly funny piece with one of the most effective and ironic of Shakespeare’s final ‘wrap ups’ of the action, but more on that later.
As with Julius Caesar it seems another use of a ‘foreign’ setting to allow consideration of politics and corruption that might cut too close to the bone if performed in an English court setting. The inciting incident of the play involves the Duke giving up his power to Angelo on a whim, ostensibly to go on a foreign trip but instead to hide out as an undercover monk to both get Angelo to make the decisions he does not have the stomach for and brutally crackdown on his subjects to show them who’s boss. Plus the Duke also wants to put Angelo’s rigid moral standards to the test. So it is a win/win situation for the Duke: if Angelo succeeds in making the tough decisions then he becomes unpopular with the people, and if he does not manage to hold up his rigid standards then he has failed the Duke. This comes to a head when Claudio is sentenced to death for making a girl pregnant outside of wedlock, causing his sister Isabel who is training to become a nun to tell Angelo that she will give anything for her brother’s life to spared…up to a point.
While this is never explicitly pointed towards in the play, I’m left feeling much more sympathy for the cold, unhappy and tormented Angelo than for the Duke who pretends to give up power on a whim and takes a God-like pleasure in meddling in his subject’s lives, even to the extent of telling Isabel that her brother has been executed, just so he can have a great moment of unveiling at the end of the story and be able to show his greatness through putting the world to rights.
The play seems to be about power giving the ability to create and amend laws to suit yourself – the position both gives Angelo full licence to pursue his ideology whether it helps or harms people, plus it tempts him to put his morality aside in his fateful decision to offer a pardon to Claudio if Isabel will sleep with him for one night. That is what destroys him - not the rather sordid request itself (which gets an extremely ironic twist in the ‘happy’ ending), but that it reveals that he actually has emotions that may sway the course of his decisions…that he is human.
This undermining of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ forms of power seems to push the audience into recognising the importance of religion and piousness in society as a greater check to this moral arbitrariness, especially as embodied in the character of Isabel. Yet this is also immediately undermined itself as Isabel’s insistence that her brother should die seems rather quickly and concretely made and her own pleas for her brother (or for “Justice, justice, justice, justice!” in the final scene), while initially forcefully made are almost immediately retracted again when challenged and it falls to others to persuade her to made further attempts, or to plead for her brother on her behalf. While this aspect is also left open to interpretation it does seem to me that maybe Isabel feels that the authorities are right in wanting to execute Claudio for making a girl pregnant, and is just carrying out the role of caring sister dutifully but without conviction.
The other aspect that totally undermines religion and piousness is again the Duke (in his whimsical games, he seems unaware of the dangerous game he is playing with the fabric of society), in playing at being a monk he gets to give people their last rights before execution, provide comfort and all the while manipulate through the confidences he is privy to.
There seems to be two pairings of characters: the Duke (the false priest) and Isabel (real faith), as well as Claudio (loving through pre-marital sex) and Angelo (the bargaining of Claudio’s life for Isabel’s virginity, as well as the later revelation of his own betrayal of a potential marriage). Plus there is also the comic relief ‘lower class’ characters who act as a mirror image itself undercutting the refinement of the main story – so the virginal nun Isabel is mirrored in the brothel madam Mistress Overdone, Elbow turns from pimp into executioner’s assistant mirroring the Duke’s change of profession (and he has a wonderful speech noting that under Angelo it is just the jail which now houses everyone from the taverns and whorehouses, so it feels as if only the location has changed, not the content or the characters).
By far the best part of the play however is the section which often undermines many of Shakespeare’s plays – the extended wrap up.
It seems to take the multiple marriage approach of As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing, and twist it, as the Duke manages to get everyone married off and put back in their place, legitimising illegitimate children and teaching both Claudio and Angelo a lesson, thus avoiding having to actually support or legitimise either of their grievances – it could be seen as a textbook use of diplomacy to defuse a difficult situation but also one that leaves every party but the Duke frustrated.
The Duke by his absence and manipulations of everyone from behind the scenes ends up the best informed character and also the least likeable or relatable (the absence of Sherlock Holmes from The Hound of the Baskervilles until he turns up having done the bulk of the investigation off stage thereby undermining Watson’s own attempts at solving the case seems very similar). The Duke is able to pair everyone off, and neatly punish each of the guilty parties “measure for measure”, but he is truly the major corrupting influence at the heart of the play who gets away without any punishment for the games he has played – and he seems all the worse for being so charismatically charming.
Of course the final coup de grace is when the Duke asks for Isabel’s hand in marriage – forgive me if this is a wrong interpretation but couldn’t this be seen very similar to Angelo’s request for a night with Isabel in exchange for Claudio’s life? The Duke has pardoned Claudio and (in front of the newly-forced into marriage Angelo too, to rub some extra salt into the wounds) requests Isabel’s hand, and therefore of course her virginity, which she similarly must feel obliged to give him in return for sparing her brother. Though before we see this purely as a terrible tragedy for Isabel, being bullied into having to give up her chastity in the end just to a different suitor, she does seem far more willing to become the Duke’s wife than to share Angelo’s bed – like Angelo’s own morality damning request earlier, her lack of rebuke of the Duke in this final moment places doubts over all of her earlier protestations (and shows perhaps that disgust at the thought of being a one night stand, with however noble a goal, contrasts with becoming the wife of the Duke, with all the power and influence that might bring. Far more than keeping chaste and becoming a nun at least!)
So the final celebratory pairings off of all of our characters instead of being a purely joyous celebration of true love united and conquering all becomes troublingly oppressive, deeply ironic and very funny!
