We have all heard of the famous name “Julius Caesar” one way or another…either the formidable politician and general of the Roman Empire in the historical context, or from the classic play written by English’s greatest poet, William Shakespeare. Although Caesar’s reputation has been embedded in my mind since elementary school (considering that I grew up in Asia, where Western/European culture and civilization are simply so foreign, it was quite something), I never seriously dived into the world of Shakespeare until Drama 101 class this fall.
The play Julius Caesar was written during the Elizabethan era, about the succession and untimely death of a noble person of power, thus making it a tragedy. The plot in a nutshell: Cassius becomes afraid of Caesar’s increasing political power in the Roman Senate after his victorious win over Pompey, and he persuades Brutus, Caesar’s friend, to form a conspiracy against Caesar to assassinate him. While Shakespeare was evidently using his play to comment on the political situation in his days, it is mind-blowing how closely it is related to modern politics and the society we now live in.
Theater companies and productions have been staging the classic play Julius Caesar in a modern context as a way to examine politics, power and authoritarianism. New York City’s “Shakespeare in the Park” put on a modern adaptation of Julius Caesar this summer, depicting a Trump-like Julius Caesar getting stabbed by his fellow officers, creating an uproar on social media and the news. The way Julius/Trump and his wife Calpurnia (with a not-so-subtle heavy accent much like Melania Trump’s) are portrayed was criticized and hotly debated. Companies like Delta Airlines and Bank of America have scrambled away from the Public Theater and pulled their funding. They can’t condone promoting violence towards the president, but it is also at odds with artists’ right to freely express themselves. It begs the question: what is deemed acceptable in theater and how do we find the balance?
Here are some pics for the opening night of Shakespeare in the Park’s Julius Caesar:
The Public Theater published a statement, standing firm in their artistic presentation, emphasizing that it is more of a cautionary tale about the costs of political violence than advocating for the violence itself. They believe that discourse is a basis of healthy democracy and it is the goal of a civically engaged theater. It is true that New York Public Theater has the total right to decide how they want to express art and deliver the message to the audience, but at the same time, mocking Trump in such an obvious way was, more or less, artistically lazy. Shakespeare’s characters were crafted as psychologically and morally complex, with no obvious hero or villain. Public Theater’s production caused the clever subtlety to disappear and rendered the adaptation a silly, SNL-type of performance. In an article published by TIME Magazine, author David Von Drehle asserts that Trump was simply a “low-hanging fruit”, an easily picked target to make fun of in this scenario. I chose not to pick a side, instead recognizing the fact that both sides have good and understandable reasons to spark this controversy—just like in the Shakespeare play itself.
Another thing that I would like to point out is the way we can differently interpret and ponder about what Shakespeare means, even adding our own perspectives to the discourse.
Quote from Julius Caesar: Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (Cassius, I.2.135-138)
This is where author John Green got his inspiration for his famous novel The Fault in Our Stars! However, his interpretation did not match up with Shakespeare’s. According to Shakespeare (through the mouth of Cassius), humans have their own agency and we are able to make life for ourselves, and that every result we get is a consequence of our decision and actions. But in John Green’s novel, the two main characters Hazel and Augustus suffer from chronic illness. The pain and suffering are not the result from their actions but instead came along with them as they were first brought to this world. This argues that sometimes, our lives are already written out in our stars. It is natural and inevitable for stars to cross and they dictate how we live and what we will encounter, and there is nothing we can do to fight against it. But the beauty of this is that even though we might not able to change what has been planned out for us, we are still able to take advantage of every moment and live life fully with no regrets.
After all this analysis, discussion and a moment of reflection, I realized how incredible Shakespeare is. His plays move through time and space, capturing the complex ways in which history tends to twist and turn. He explores the range of the human condition through flawed characters…in this case we can see the brokenness and struggle of Brutus, his dilemma of doing what he believes is best for Rome and his role as a trusted friend of Julius Caesar. In a way, the central figure of the play is actually Brutus, because the play is through his eyes. As the audience, we got the chance to see how those internal moral dilemmas and agonies caused the domino effect of interactions and events around him.
In the TIME article mentioned before, David Von Drehle went on to analyze and praise Shakespeare’s craftiness and cleverness: “Shakespeare’s “negative capability”—his gift for feeling another’s feelings and seeing through another’s eyes without imposing his own personality. No quality could be more useful today, when so much of our culture urges us to exaggerate differences. Look through our own eyes only and it’s easy to divide the world into friends and foes, to deny the flaws of allies while magnifying the blemishes of the enemy.“
We get to see the world through the lens of the playwright, and understand how the world could and should be structured. The cleverness of crafting plays gives us some perception of order in life. One of my favorite quotes of Shakespeare’s: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” What an incredible depiction of humanity and life.