Julius Caesar William Shakespeare Directed by Shana Cooper

Caius Ligarius, Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Trebonius, Cinna Fellow conspirators and assassins.

Flavius and Marullus Tribunes of the people, still loyal to Caesar’s vanquished enemy Pompey.

A Soothsayer Warns Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.”

Notes by Garrett Eisler Cinna the Poet Not to be confused with Cinna the Conspirator— Armando Durán (Julius Caesar) until, tragically, he is.

Who’s Who Commoners and Plebeians of Rome A mob to be swayed. Julius Caesar Roman military conqueror, now Consul of the Roman Republic with unprecedented dictatorial The Story power. In his mid-50s and in failing health. The place is Rome, the year is 44 BC. Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus the great general and now Consul of the Roman Senator, respected statesman, friend of Caesar’s. Republic, has just eliminated his chief rival, Proud descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus, a Pompey, and now faces an unobstructed path to founding father of the Republic. A stoic, sole power. But he is aging—weakened by epi- philosophically. lepsy and partially deaf—and his wish for greater authority starts to concern even longtime admir- Caius Cassius ers like Marcus Brutus, one of the most respected Fellow senator, opposed to Caesar’s power grab; men in the Senate. This growing faction wor- hatches a plot to assassinate him. ries about Caesar’s crackdown on civil liberties (eliminating any remaining support for Pompey) Mark Antony and about his monarchical ambitions that are Caesar’s loyal soldier and, ultimately, avenger. so clearly at odds with the civic virtues of the A stirring orator. 500-year-old Republic. Amid these tensions, Brutus is approached Octavius by his colleague Cassius with a proposition: to Caesar’s adopted son and heir. Now a young man, lead a secret plot to assassinate Caesar and he will eventually rule as Caesar Augustus. restore Republican rule. Brutus is hesitant at first, but Cassius wears down his resistance Portia with appeals to his patriotism, his devotion to Wife of Brutus and daughter of the admired republican ideals and his vanity. Remembering anti-Caesar statesman Cato. his great ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus—who overthrew the last Roman king and helped found Calpurnia the Republic—Brutus answers the call and ends Wife of Caesar, superstitious and worried for her up leading the conspiracy. While he loves Caesar husband’s safety. personally and does not fault his actions so far, he reasons that his friend must die as a preven- Caska tive measure. “Therefore think him as a serpent’s A leading conspirator against Caesar. egg,” he tells himself, “and kill him in the shell.”

23 Julius Caesar

parallel writers Shakespeare and Democracy

Julius Caesar is not just based Despite warnings from a Soothsayer, his wife Shakespeare’s lasting popularity in the United on a true story, but on a very Calpurnia and other well-wishers (and several States may appear to suggest his plays appeal ominous supernatural prophecies), Caesar pro- to a democratic sensibility. But would the play- specific historical source: the ceeds during the ill-fated “Ides of March” to the wright—a loyal servant of two very powerful Greek biographer Plutarch, capitol, where Brutus and his fellow assassins monarchs—have been surprised by that kind who chronicled the lives of 50 await with daggers. The deed is done swiftly and of reception? messily—the conspirators, covered in his blood, In the case of Julius Caesar, American audi- great statesmen of antiquity in proudly display the evidence, crying “Liberty! ences have historically been inclined to see the his Parallel Lives (circa 100 AD), Freedom! Tyranny is dead!” Confident they will conspirators as freedom fighters out to vanquish pairing various ancient Greeks be vindicated in the public eye, Brutus spares the a tyrant, the man who “crossed the Rubicon,” life of Caesar’s right-hand man, Mark Antony, marched his armies on his native country and with (then) more recent Roman whom Cassius counsels killing as well. Antony began the transformation of Rome from a repub- counterparts. Henry V, writ- cunningly feigns cooperation while secretly plot- lic into an empire. Caesar’s very name has long ten in 1599 just before Julius ting revenge. At Caesar’s funeral, Brutus makes been synonymous with power-hungry dictator- the fatal mistake of letting Antony address the ships, and the idea of tyrannicide has always Caesar, has many references assembled “friends, Romans, countrymen.” While been a popular American rallying cry. Many of the to Plutarch’s subjects. When at first persuaded by Brutus’s cold, logical argu- Founding Fathers were known fans of the play, a 1579 English translation by ment for Caesar’s death, the fickle mob just as including Thomas Jefferson, who could have been quickly gives in to Antony’s oratorical brilliance channeling it when he wrote, “The tree of liberty Thomas North, The Lives of the and emotional manipulation, appealing to their must be refreshed from time to time with the Noble Grecians and Romans, earlier hero worship of Caesar. With the citizenry blood of patriots and tyrants.” was reissued in London in 1595, riled up into a vengeful passion, Brutus and Cassius take flight, raising an army to hold their Americans’ take on the play Shakespeare clearly read it tenuous grip on power. The play has a long legacy in the U.S. as a rous- thoroughly. He obviously kept A civil war breaks out between the pro- and ing pro-democracy pageant. Published scripts the book handy, relying on it anti-Caesar forces. Antony is joined by the young and performances proliferated widely during Octavius, Caesar’s adopted son and heir (and the the American Revolution. In the Civil War, the in later years for Antony and future emperor Caesar Augustus). Despite some Confederacy co-opted Shakespeare for their own Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon testiness between these two potential rivals cause; John Wilkes Booth, hailing from a family of of Athens. (they turn against each other in a later play, famous Shakespearean actors, was so obsessed Antony and Cleopatra), their united forces prove with the role of Brutus that he acted out his own Parallels between too strong for the conspirators. On top of every- assassination, in a theatre no less, shouting a line Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and thing, Brutus learns that Portia, his wife and of Latin—“sic semper tyrannis” (“thus always Plutarch are unmistakable. The confidante, has committed suicide rather than to tyrants”)—clearly evoking the world of the face the news of his defeat. Both Brutus and play, if not quoting exactly. In the 20th century, chapters on Caesar, Brutus and Cassius then take their own lives as well, rather actor-director Orson Welles updated the free- Antony in Lives supply many of than be led as captives through Rome. Order is dom- fighter interpretation with his 1937 stage the play’s signature events— restored by Antony and Octavius’s victory, but production set in the Rome of Mussolini, replete the audience knows that the Roman Republic is with jackboots, armbands and Nuremberg-rally including Cassius’s persuasion already effectively dead and the Empire of Caesar imagery for Antony’s funeral oration. He even of Brutus to lead the conspiracy, Augustus is soon to begin. retitled the play Caesar: Death of a Dictator. Brutus’s tortured deliberations But was Shakespeare really approaching Roman history as a small-r republican or a over the matter, details of the small-d democrat? It surely would have been assassination itself, and even risky to fully advocate the violent overthrow of the appearance of a prescient a beloved ruler in 1599, a time of much anxiety over England’s “homeland security,” including Soothsayer. But just as Plutarch several revealed plots against Queen Elizabeth herself. With the nation threatened by Catholic- Protestant religious turmoil within and foreign

24 jenny graham jenny Antony quite deliberately and skillfully is suspected of taking liberties unleashes mob violence in his manipulation of with history, Shakespeare allows the plebeians. “Now let it work,” he prays pri- vately, “Mischief, thou art afoot.” Shakespeare himself necessary dramatic shows us the chilling effects of such mass hyste- license with Plutarch, especially ria in the very next scene, when citizens corner a with the historical timeline man named Cinna, which also happens to be the name of one of the conspirators. He pleads with of events. In real life, Brutus them that he is just an innocent poet, not the and Cassius did not meet their man they seek, but the mob attacks him anyway. demise until two years after “Tear him for his bad verses,” they say. So much for vox populi. the assassination. Shakespeare, The funeral oration and the murder of Cinna more excitingly, charts their mark a key tonal shift midway through the play swift downfall in the immediate from the lofty justifications of the assassina- tion to the act’s bloody repercussions and the wake of their crime, giving conspiracy’s ultimate failure. This tragic reversal the final scenes a swift and gives the text a balance and juxtaposition that tragic inevitability. is essential to considering Shakespeare’s true Elsewhere, Shakespeare Julius Caesar (2011): Mark Antony (Danforth Comins) weeps after political mindset while writing. Rather than sim- the murder of Caesar (Vilma Silva), as Brutus (Jonathan Haugen) ply a blanket anti-democracy or pro-tyrannicide seizes on brief descriptions in ponders the momentous deed. statement, Julius Caesar more objectively appears Plutarch and expands them into powers abroad, the ever-present monitoring to be a continuous debate between the two epic scenes. Of Antony’s eulogy of London’s public theatres loomed especially extremes. As scholar James Shapiro notes, “Even large over Shakespeare’s company. Caesar was as Shakespeare offers compelling arguments of Caesar, the historian reports also more revered than reviled during the for tyrannicide in the opening acts of the play, that it “did greatly move [the Renaissance. Elizabeth even had a bust of him he shows in the closing ones the savage bloodlet- people’s] hearts and affections,” installed at her Greenwich palace, and Dante con- ting and political breakdown that . . . were soon demned Brutus and Cassius to the final circle of to follow.” but only the playwright can hell alongside Judas Iscariot. Julius Caesar has often been promoted as a compose a 130-line oration that kind of civic text in America. (Theatre producer will move us directly. Even when That fickle mob Joe Papp often recalled how his first exposure Censorship or self-censorship aside, though, to Shakespeare was reciting from the play in closely paraphrasing his source, “power to the people” was probably not the mes- public school in the 1930s.) But recurring skepti- Shakespeare transforms exposi- sage Shakespeare ever intended to convey. In this cism about democracy throughout Shakespeare’s tory prose into pithy verse. and his other Roman plays (especially Coriolanus), work indicates he may have considered its great- he expresses plenty of skepticism about democ- est flaw a capacity for self-destruction at the Plutarch’s claim that Caesar racy. Nowhere is this clearer than in his depiction hands of a gullible electorate. “When he tried to thought it “was better to die of the Roman electorate as a fickle and malleable imagine electioneering, voting and representa- once than always to be afraid of mob. When Brutus defends his actions before tion,” Stephen Greenblatt observes in his book them, they, at first, effusively agree that “This Shakespeare’s Freedom, “he conjured up situations death” thus becomes the more Caesar was a tyrant” and “We are blessed that in which people, manipulated by wealthy and quotable “Cowards die many Rome is rid of him.” (Ironically, one plebeian, over- fathomlessly cynical politicians, were repeat- times before their deaths. / looking Brutus’s whole argument, cries, “Let him edly induced to act against their own interests.” be Caesar!”) But when Antony takes the stage, he Perhaps in the wake of our own tumultuous elec- The valiant never taste of death has no trouble reversing their sympathies, stirring tion season, we can ponder the play’s cautionary but once.” them up against the man they just praised: “We’ll history lesson in a more critical and questioning burn the house of Brutus,” they say now. “Most frame of mind. noble Caesar! We’ll revenge his death!”

25 Julius Caesar jennifer reiley jennifer “horrid sights” Brutus as Tragic Hero

For a play often considered Critics have long carped over The Tragedy of stoic and rational, a lot of weird Julius Caesar as a choice of title for a play in which the eponymous character dies midway things happen in Julius Caesar. through, after appearing in only three scenes. Shakespeare never forgets the Brutus is by far the largest role on paper, and wild pagan spirituality lurking even Cassius and Antony have more lines than Caesar. Restoration-era playwright John Dennis behind the staid façade of the lamented that Shakespeare had demoted this Roman Republic. “first and greatest of men” to “a fourth-rate actor The night before the assas- in his own tragedy.” But dramatically speaking, the actual tragedy sination, a storm brings forth in the play is Brutus’s. The death of Caesar may be men on fire and wild beasts— shocking, but not the kind of ill-fated yet avoid- enough to give the conspirator able fall from grace that has distinguished the greatest stage tragedies since the ancient Greeks. Caska second thoughts. “The Brutus’s fall is far more dramatically compelling world, too saucy with the gods,” than Caesar’s because it shows not just the physi- he fears, “incenses them to cal demise of a powerful man but the failure of a noble idea. send destruction.” Even valiant The classical tragic protagonist is typically Caesar, when warned of threats someone of high standing who is brought low, to his life, consults animal- and Shakespeare spends the early scenes build- ing up Brutus’s reputation. First, he is of noble Julius Caesar (2002): Marc Antony (Dan Donohue) eulogizes Brutus (Derrick Lee Weeden) as “the noblest Roman of them all.” sacrificing priests who report blood by Roman standards, descended from one they “could not find a heart of the founding families of the republic. He is also Though Cassius’s motives are not as overtly within the beast.” celebrated as exceptionally wise, fair and ethical. malicious as Shakespeare’s more villainous “O he sits high in all the people’s hearts,” says the seducers, the scene is reminiscent of other great No one is more shaken by conspirator Caska, “And that which would appear Machiavellian manipulators like Richard III or Iago such omens than Caesar’s wife, offense in us / His countenance, like richest (who exploits the otherwise noble Othello’s pen- Calpurnia, whose famous line alchemy / Will change to virtue and to worthi- chant for jealousy). Cassius dares Brutus to live ness.” As the assassins begin to assemble their up to his ancestral heroes and even suggests he “I never stood on ceremonies,” risky enterprise, they rely on Brutus’s renown to should be king, implying Brutus himself harbors only gives more force to her legitimize it in the eyes of the people. some ambition for absolute power. (“Brutus and nightmare visions—such Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’? / Why Tragic flaws should that name be sounded more than yours?”) as a lioness who “whelped in Tragedy is not about the ruin of a perfect, To fully reel Brutus in, Cassius even resorts to the streets.” unblemished individual, however, because that outright deception—writing fake fan letters Then there is the vengeful would cause only outrage in the audience, not appealing to Brutus’s pride, “Writings all tending the “pity and fear” that gives the genre its unique to the great opinion / That Rome holds of ghost of the slain Caesar, power. The truly tragic protagonist is one who his name.” The appeal to Brutus’s self-regard haunting the conspirators to has some hand in his own undoing, usually due works so well that he steps forward to lead the their deaths. As Brutus to an inherent character trait. Brutus’s flaw may conspiracy himself. be his vanity. His esteemed reputation makes him As the plan moves forward, we already see the bemoans when all is lost: susceptible to praise, something Cassius seizes seeds of its own destruction in Brutus’s unrelent- “O Julius Caesar, thou art upon in overcoming Brutus’s initial ambivalence ing idealizing of the bloody act of assassination. mighty yet! / Thy spirit walks in joining the conspiracy. As he soliloquizes “We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,” he behind his friend’s back: “Well, Brutus, thou art tells his compatriots, “And in the spirit of men abroad and turns our swords / noble; yet, I see, / Thy honorable mettle may be there is no blood. / O, that we then could come by In our own proper entrails.” wrought / From that it is disposed . . . / For who Caesar’s spirit / And not dismember Caesar!” But so firm that cannot be seduced.” Brutus’s dream of a bloodless coup remains just

26 caesar on screen a fantasy. Once the deed is done, we see Brutus Brutus’s tragedy addresses the eternal Compared to other Shakespeare fall victim to another weakness, a vain overconfi- struggle between idealism and reality in politics. favorites, Julius Caesar has dence in his own reasoning powers. While Must morality always come first or, as the more choosing not to dispose of Antony along with Machiavellian Cassius would argue, do the ends not been one of his most Caesar may show ethical restraint, Brutus’s mis- justify the means? “Cassius was better cut out for filmed plays. Here are three reading of Antony’s capacity for vengeance turns a conspirator,” wrote William Hazlitt, the great attempts—one a straightfor- out to be a fatal mistake—especially when he 19th-century critic. Brutus, he says, in trying “to agrees to let Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral reconcile the public good with the least possible ward adaptation, the others unmonitored and without an approved text. hurt to its enemies,” suffers from an irony of well- more modernized riffs. Brutus again shows classic tragic hubris intentioned politics: “The humanity and honesty as a military commander in the ensuing civil which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny war. When he and Cassius debate strategy, he render them unfit to cope with the cunning and Julius Caesar (1953) advocates a quick surprise attack on Antony power of those who are opposed to them.” A surprisingly faithful approach and Octavius rather than waiting for them to The degree of Shakespeare’s debt to Aristotle by Hollywood standards. Most advance. He argues his reasons impeccably in is much debated. Many aspects of the ancient one of the play’s most famous speeches: philosopher’s foundational Poetics he seems to notable for the competing ignore entirely. But in reaching back to antiquity performances of classicist John There is a tide in the affairs of men, for the story of Brutus and Caesar, he seems to Gielgud as Cassius and Method Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; have crafted a play at least in the spirit of the Omitted, all the voyage of their life classical tragedy of Greece and Rome. actor Marlon Brando as Antony. Is bound in shallows and in miseries. For Aristotle, tragedy’s effect relied on the On such a full sea are we now afloat; audience’s feelings of pity and fear toward the Me and Orson Welles (2008) And we must take the current when it serves, protagonist. “Pity,” he explains, “is aroused by Or lose our ventures. unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune A backstage drama about Orson of a man like ourselves.” Few may identify with Welles’s famous 1930s anti-fas- The speech is typical Brutus—rhetorically Julius Caesar, who, according to Cassius, “doth cist update of Julius Caesar. The powerful and soundly logical, and it thoroughly bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.” But persuades the others in the room. But only later who among us has not felt our idealism power- film’s detailed reconstruction do we realize he was totally wrong. He and less in the face of a “tide in the affairs of men”? of Welles’s visually stunning Cassius are crushed by the pro-Caesarites’ better- stage adaptation allows us to prepared forces. Cassius’s advice to let the enemy Further Reading tire themselves out by marching to meet them see what all the fuss was about. might have changed the outcome. But such is • Plutarch. Fall of the Roman Republic and the play’s sense of tragic inevitability that Rome in Crisis (Penguin Classics editions). These Caesar Must Die (2012) Brutus’s overconfidence leads to his doom. That volumes, collecting just the Roman chapters of tide he speaks of so eloquently is now turning Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, feature modern transla- A documentary about a against him. tions of the biographies Shakespeare drew on for performance by inmates at Julius Caesar: those of Caesar, Antony and Brutus. a maximum security prison All is lost By play’s end, Brutus has lost everything: his • James Shapiro. 1599: A Year in the Life of in today’s Rome. These violent republic, his friend Cassius, even his wife Portia, William Shakespeare. In his immersive look at one criminals turned amateur actors whose suicide he learns of at the front. When he of the playwright’s most prolific years, Shapiro find surprising meaning and faces the prospect of being captured and “led in reads Julius Caesar for its immediate relevance to triumph thorough the streets of Rome,” he shud- contemporary Elizabethan politics. catharsis in Shakespeare’s trag- ders: “Think not . . . that ever Brutus will go bound edy, revealing new resonances to Rome; He bears too great a mind.” And so • Barry Strauss. The Death of Caesar. Separating in the classic text. before he can be taken alive, he sacrifices himself fact from legend (including Shakespeare’s), a to retain his honor and nobility. modern historian reconstructs the actual events, motivations and ramifications of “history’s most famous assassination.”

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