Reviews
The Guardian
Michael Billington
“Africa has no monopoly on dictators but the play acquires fresh urgency in its new setting. This, after all, is a work about the encroachment of autocracy on a republic; and, although the evening begins with a street fiesta celebrating the return of a military hero, the looming bronze statue of Caesar shows the dictatorial threat. But the African setting doesn't simply give new edge to the ethical debate about political murder. It also reminds us that this is a play filled with prophecies, portents, dreams and, incidentally, leonine images. Even if Africa is not alone in its belief in the power of spirits, the soothsayer here becomes a magical force who acts as a ubiquitous shaman.”
07/06/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
“Shakespeare's Roman play is often, wrongly, considered cold and colourless. Now, though, this political drama is scorchingly reinvigorated in Gregory Doran's staging which – with a superb ensemble of black British actors – translates Ancient Rome to modern-day Africa. It's a startlingly close fit.”
10/06/2012
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The Daily Mail
Quentin Letts
“Mr Doran is not the first to set Shakespeare in the continent. For instance, there was a superb Macbeth at Wilton’s Music Hall in London a few years ago which was played like a Congo war story. If this ‘JC’ does not quite match that, it may be because the verse speaking is often indistinct and rushed, the whole enterprise becoming perhaps ten per cent too frenzied. But the concept itself is pretty neat and thoroughly believable.”
08/06/2012
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
“It's extraordinary how many different notes Doran manages to touch in a production that moves on one uninterrupted gust ... In a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern moment, Brutus's servant Lucius becomes in Simon Manyonda's hands a character who maps the arc of the play: first, a small and acquiescent companion, then a humorous turn; and finally the agent of tragedy.”
10/06/2012
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The Stage
Michael Coveney
“Paterson Joseph’s appealing, doe-eyed Brutus is far from being the noblest Roman of them all - that verdict, again, is issued after his death. Shakespeare nails with uncanny prescience the fact that we can’t assess our politicians till they’ve gone, and we certainly don’t know what will happen after the election, the uprising, the regime change. Is Iraq better off without Saddam Hussein? After Caesar comes chaos and civil war.”
07/06/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
“For once I didn’t find myself fidgeting in the usually anticlimactic latter section of the play, when the assassination and the thrilling speeches that follow give way to scenes of civil war. On this occasion, the action proceeds at a terrific lick and one is made keenly aware of how idealistic plans can so often have disastrous consequences.”
07/06/2012
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The Times
Libby Purves
“So it all goes like a train for the first hour and more: but it is a difficult-shaped play, coming so early to its emotional crisis and moving on into politics and battle. Doran’s decision to run without an interval is a brave shot at keeping up the impetus, but risks our fading attention in the later acts. However, the last moments are once more memorably moving: especially a certain instinctive gesture by Octavius with his AK-47, parried by Antony. Shakes the heart.”
08/06/2012
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The Evening Standard
Fiona Mountford
“Doran has taken the play that the RSC appears contractually obliged to stage every five minutes, ripped out the interval and plunged the piece into the febrile world of contemporary African politics. Despots being toppled and new tyrants taking their place: it all fits most felicitously with the continent of Amin and Mugabe. Crucially, though, Doran isn’t just a man for the big gesture. Sure, the setting is bold — and it reminds us how unusual it still is to see an all-black cast — but it’s filled with precision-worked individual details. ”
07/06/2012
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The Financial Times
Ian Shuttleworth
“While celebrating Shakespeare’s universality, herein lies a danger that this kind of interpretation may inadvertently point up the contrast between host and subject cultures. Especially at a time of heritage-centred celebration like this, it may evoke complacent self-congratulation that we ourselves are not prone to such African-style instability and conflict. ”
09/06/2012
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