JULIUS CAESAR, RSC, Barbican

JULIUS CAESAR: William Shakespeare
Barbican: Tkts 020 7638 8891
Runs: 2h 10m, no interval
Review: Vera Lustig, 31 January 2002

Fussy but well-played production with Greg Hicks an outstanding Brutus
JULIIUS CAESAR with songs. Yes, really. A singer behind a gauze opens Edward Hall's production with a kind of Latin yodel. There are other directorial indulgences: silhouetted, jackbooted figures goose-step across the stage (in this Rome, unwieldy togas are draped over junta uniforms). It's as though Hall does not trust his seasoned actors to animate the play.

Which they do. It's a gripping production, at its most resonant when at its plainest. As Caesar, Ian Hogg, squat, pale and hoarsely petulant, is like a grotesque baby, menacing and vulnerable, making Cassius' accounts of his physical frailty the more poignant. Tim Pigott-Smith's voice has a built-in sneer – a highly civilised one, but a sneer nonetheless – and his soldierly Cassius exudes bilious contempt for his ruler and for his own 'underling' status.

Greg Hicks's profound, even scholarly Brutus has, by contrast, a dancer's grace and poise. Tender with his wife and servants, all straight-backed, troubled integrity when alone, he is palpably a man thrust into a violent world he finds deeply repugnant. He is the emotional centre of his revival, rather than Tom Mannion's competent Mark Antony.

Hall uses the Barbican's vastness to emphasise the protagonists' isolation in comparison with the plebeians' malleable conformity. This device succeeds only partially. In the climactic 'Friends, Romans . . . ' scene the enraged citizenry are planted in the auditorium, clanking metal pots and bellowing – resembling scattered hecklers, rather than a surging, swelling mob. They are too far removed from the stage to generate any friction with Mark Antony. So we forgo one of the great pleasures of Julius Caesar, the sight of Mark Antony cannily manipulating the dangerous malcontents, with rhetoric which is at once demagogic and heartfelt.

Cast:
Julius Caesar: Ian Hogg
Calpurnia: Sian Howard
Casca: Colin McCormack
Mark Antony: Tom Mannion
Soothsayer: Chuk Iwuji
Marcus Brutus: Greg Hicks
Portia: Claire Cox
Caius Cassius: Tim Pigott-Smith
Cicero: Michael G Jones
Decius Brutus: Andrew Maud
Cinna: Stuart Goodwin
Metellus Cimber: Charlie Simpson
Trebonius: Damian Kearney
Caius Ligarius: David Mara
Lucius: Tom Harper
Caesar's Servant: Andrew James Storey
Artemidorus: Conor Moloney
Popilius Lena: Sean Hannaway
Antony's Servant: Adam Kay
Octavius's Servant: Anthony Flanagan
Roman Citizen: Penelope Woodman
Cinna the Poet: Sean Hannaway
Octavius Caesar: John Hopkins
Lepidus: Michael G Jones
Lucilius: Finn Caldwell
Pindarus: David Mara

Director: Edward Hall
Design: Michael Pavelka
Lighting: Ben Ormerod
Music: Simon Slater
Sound: Matt McKenzie

2002-02-12 09:29:38