The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Power Shifts season continues with a hard-hitting new version of Julius Caesar that not only addresses the question of power and who does, or should, hold it, but sees its two male protagonists reimagined as women. It’s a way of adding another layer of contemporary resonance to a work that continues to remain relevant to modern society, according to two of the production’s key figures...

The stated intention of the RSC’s current Power Shifts season - which comprises five plays from Shakespeare’s First Folio, performed in the year that marks its 400th anniversary - is to address the question of power, who holds it, who should hold it, and how it changes human beings and the world as a result.
The ‘shift’ element is also illustrated by changes to traditional casting, with a number of traditionally male characters reimagined as women. Alex Kingston recently played the RSC’s first female Prospero in The Tempest, while the upcoming production of Julius Caesar sees the murderous duo of Brutus and Cassius performed by Thalissa Teixeira and Kelly Gough respectively. 
The move reflects the company’s desire to keep the Bard’s work fresh and relevant to contemporary society, according to Acting Artistic Director Erica Whyman: “As the RSC embarks on a new chapter, with a fresh and fearless determination to look at ourselves and our world through the lens of Shakespeare’s plays, all of our creative activity in 2023 will address questions of power. Who has it, who doesn’t, how does it change a human being, when does it corrupt, and how might it disrupt and liberate?”
Erica says the plays would have been lost forever if not for the First Folio, which was published in 1623 (just seven years after Shakespeare’s death), an act she believes sent a powerful message in itself.
“The Folio invested enormous lasting power in one playwright, who was himself fascinated by how power is apportioned according to race, gender, class and birth right, and how rarely the smartest and the bravest people are afforded power.”
The season also includes new productions of Cymbeline (directed by Gregory Doran), As You Like It and Macbeth, with Next Generation Act - the RSC’s young company - also set to perform Hamlet.
“These six fascinating and wonderfully different plays explore political power, the crumbling of imperial power, the power of young people - especially young women - to free themselves from expectation and find new ways of living, and the terrible psychological destruction of the murderous desire for power.”
The ‘especially young women’ line is a telling one, given how prevalent women will be during the season, not least in Julius Caesar, which sees Brutus, Cassius and Octavius all reimagined as female characters. The former is played by British-Brazilian actress Thalissa Teixeira. Thalissa thinks it’s important to explore how women in roles of power are still judged differently to men. She cites the likes of Nicola Sturgeon, Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin (“who was caught dancing and having a good time like a normal human being”), and how race, and racial stereotyping, can add another layer to the dynamic. 
“I think it’s really time to be questioning women’s roles in the public eye, and the optics of putting women in power as well,” she says. “It’s quite cynical sometimes. As a cast we’ve been talking a lot about Brutus being a black woman and Cassius being a white woman, and almost needing Brutus to take over because it will be stronger in the eyes of the optics. 
“Having a black woman kill an old white man on stage is an image that we’ve got, whether or not we’re talking about race.”
Director Atri Banerjee’s production not only features a young cast (“I think we’re all the ages that the characters really were,” counters Thalissa), but a diverse one in terms of gender, race, nationality, class and disability - two of the actors are deaf - ensuring it represents contemporary society as it tells a story with contemporary resonance.
“There’s this incredible cast from across the globe, with all our own ideas about revolution and war and fighting and dictatorship,” says Thalissa. “In terms of civil war, some have lived through it, so it’s been a really moving experience.
“But what is contemporary when you’re talking about humans? Black people were in Rome, people who couldn’t hear were in Rome… it’s maybe quite old-fashioned that we haven’t put those people on our stage.”
Thalissa also finds it exciting to have a power struggle in Rome (44BC), the fears of an Elizabethan society with an ageing monarch at the time the play was written (1599), and the horrors of the modern world “all being talked about and placed on a stage simultaneously”.
“Shakespeare was writing about Julius Caesar but chose to talk about the aftermath of the assassination. He’s interested in the people, what the outcomes are and what the result of violence is. Probably because while he was writing it, Elizabeth was old and they didn’t have a monarch to follow her, and that was terrifying. The idea of not knowing what was coming next and [the prospect of] civil war was huge.”
Standing up to power and drawing a line in the sand - Caesar was arguably murdered for the good of the people - is another theme that is especially pertinent to the present day, given the number of workers taking strike action to fight their respective causes.
“It’s people deciding that enough is enough. When I got cast, Atri said he was really interested to see if I could get into the mindset of being able to kill your dad if you know that is going to save the population.
“It’s a huge question, but it’s also like ‘When do I stand up against my boss as a train worker’, or ‘when do I decide I’m not going to work however many hours a week and be paid very little as a nurse?’”
Finding contemporary resonance in Shakespeare’s work is like shooting fish in a barrel. Thalissa reels off a Cassius quote from the play to demonstrate the point: How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown. But she also believes it shows how Shakespeare wanted his work to remain relevant to, and performed by, all types of people.
“He’d be turning in his grave if he knew old white men in togas were doing this story over and over again on a British stage, because he was a modern guy writing about absolutely current affairs.
“There was a new play almost every other second, just to keep up with what was happening in society, and that’s why I think Atri wants to make it contemporary. It’d be a huge disservice to tell this story without questioning what is going on in our current climate.”

by Steve Adams

Image:  Thalissa Teixeira playing Brutus.