Shakespeare in Africa

Photo: Richard Temine/BAM

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky to see Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in a new production by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

When I arrived at the picturesquely shabby Harvey Theater, the party was already underway: as the auditorium was filling up, on stage a group of actors in African garb were dancing to the music played by a small band. Even though I had seen posters for this production in the city, only then did I realize that this Caesar would be radically transplanted onto a very foreign soil.

This was a big gamble, and so I promised myself that I would leave as soon as I hear the buzz of Shakespeare spinning in his grave. However, not ten minutes into the performance, I completely forgot about my escape plans, because the RSC has won me over with their craft.

To be sure, the re-envisioning of the play, directed by Gregory Doran, was drastic. The cast was all-Black and spoke with a vague “African” accent, which was reasonably organic and easy to understand. Set in contemporary Africa, the play has acquired immediacy and urgency. In Hollywood, such transformations often serve as mandates to overact, but thankfully the RSC did not go overboard with exotic flavors and retained the classic pathos and irony of the play.

Caesar was a petty local ruler, who rose to the top of the political hierarchy despite being a person of lesser energy, charisma and physical power than his peers. In their turn, the senators were blinded by anxiety over Caesar’s dictatorial ambitions. In fact, it is more than anxiety, because in Africa the will of the dictator decides matters of life and death, rather than only influence, wealth, and power.

This precariousness of existence and proximity to the line between life and death was felt strongly in this production, expressed not only by the physical violence or powerful emotions, but also by the closeness to nature, which was introduced through the sounds of the elements and nocturnal creatures. In the scenes in Brutus’s orchard and at Caesar’s palace, it was felt that the darkness was teeming with living things, all struggling to survive and devouring each other.

Another force of nature in this dangerous landscape was the people of Rome, who were transformed into a ragtag crew of hecklers, quick to act, light on their feet, and fickle in their affections. After the word of Caesar’s assassination gets out, the mob captures Cinna the poet instead of Cinna the conspirator and lynches the man by “necklacing”, a gruesome form of execution practiced in South Africa in the 1980s and 90s, in which a tire filled with gasoline is placed around the victim’s body and set on fire. This highly charged mob is worth wooing, and in the contest for its support, Antony’s emotional manipulation proves to be more effective than the reserve and caution of neurotic Brutus.

Perhaps the most important element of this performance was the rapport among the characters of Brutus, Cassius, and Antony, which, combined with Shakespeare’s timeless storytelling, has made this reading viable and compelling. In Shakespearean world, men are allowed a greater range of emotion and expression, and in the African setting, the stakes are raised by the struggle for survival. Watching this powerful mixture was engrossing.

Another effective innovation introduced in this production was the role of the Soothsayer. The word “sooth” is derived from Norse and ultimately Sanskrit roots for “truth” or “what is”, so a soothsayer is a person who says it like it is. In the RSC production, the Soothsayer, played by Nigerian-born Theo Ogundipe, a man of imposing physical stature, is transformed into a tribal medicine man in a skirt made of animal skins and clay makeup. The inspiration for this makeup came from the Nuba people, who use ash to decorate their bodies. The Soothsayer often appears as an observer, a silent witness, a part of the natural environment, or in the scene of Caesar’s funeral, as a participant in a ritual, and a link between the world of men and the realm of spirits. Paradoxically, I completely forgot Caesar’s dismissive response to the Soothsayer’s warning:

Soothsayer

            Beware of the ides of March.

Caesar

            He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

If Shakespeare was spinning in his grave, he was making a sound that was outside my hearing range or I was too engrossed in the show to pay attention.

Photo: Richard Temine/BAM, from A 'Caesar' with an African Accent, by Jeff Lunden, NPR