Director’s Notes

When we first discussed staging Julius Caesar we decided that there would be no point in a traditional, togas-and all production which focussed on the historical importance of the killing of Caesar.

I am not a great fan of youth theatres presenting Shakespeare, often because it seems that it is being performed out of some sense of duty or the young people involved aren’t emotionally involved in the show.

We have tried to avoid this by spending a long time discussing and playing about with the themes that Julius Caesar presents, and by updating the time setting of the play.

Our production is set in a near future where the young people you see on stage have formed a new society.

They have a range of cultural references which we would recognise - music from the last five decades, stylised clothing - and a story to tell.

We try to make it clear at the opening that we know that Julius Caesar is dead but, as history repeats itself, so this story has been and will be replayed again and again. This isn’t a play about the death of a Roman, it is about human frailties, strength of character and how we react to a shocking event.

We began our initial exploration of the play late September 2001 and so it is not surprising that the reaction to horrific events was praying on our minds. In particular the scene in which Cinna the Poet is killed for sharing a name with one of the murderers of Julius Caesar struck a chord, when after September 11th Muslims throughout the USA and Britain were threatened with extreme violence for sharing a religion with the terrorists.

This is undoubtedly a very violent production, which shouldn’t really be surprising as this is a play with a murder at its heart. Furthermore, we live in a very violent society, a post September 11th society where violence is a highly visible political tool as well as a form of entertainment.

The boundaries are blurred. We criticise the Romans for watching the slaughter of Christians in the Coliseum, then turn on to WWF wrestling to watch men and women pretend (although sometimes the pretence is all too real) to beat each other into unconsciousness.

Throughout recent months we had been exploring different ways to portray the characters and the story to make it relevant to an modern audience, and to ourselves. There is a lot of physical theatre and dance in the production, nearly all of it choreographed by youth theatre members themselves.

It is always difficult, if not impossible, to portray a battle on stage and we felt, after many different attempts, that a highly stylised depiction of the violence, strength and pain of a battle was the most effective.

Because the actors have all had a hand in choreographing their own pieces they are also very personal and reflect the emotions of the individual actors involved.

When designing the production, the costumes and putting the soundtrack together there have been no limitations at all on the influences we were allowed to draw on. Dali and Gaudi, Lord of the Flies, Moulin Rouge, A Knight’s Tale, Mad Max, Fascist iconography, West Side Story, club flyers, Madonna, Biomechanics, Hamlet, Greek myths, Bladerunner, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Water Margin, along with hundreds of other stimuli have all been identified throughout the rehearsal process.

We hope you enjoy the evening.

Every member of the youth theatre has had to work enormously hard on this production. As well as acting, designing and choreographing the performance they have also had to carry out their own research, put up posters and help create their own costumes.

We think the effort has been worth it.

We hope you do too!