Folger Finds: Julius Caesar meets Julius X

Describing Folger Theatre’s season opener, Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by Al Letson, director Nicole Brewer said, “In many ways, you already know the story—whether through Shakespeare or American history. But you’re compelled to watch it unfold again, because of how Letson remixes his own verse with excerpts from Malcolm X’s speeches and the most notable lines and scenes from Julius Caesar.” Working with Folger curators, Brewer has blended materials from the collection and the production to weave a sensory tapestry evocative of the show itself. Brewer’s selections are on view from September 23 through November 2 in the On Stage case in the Out of the Vault gallery.

A visual journey from Rome to Harlem

Costumes visually identify the time and place of a play. This ink and wash design for Calpurnia from a 19th-century production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar echoes the play’s original setting in classical Rome.

Danielle Preston’s digital design for Calpurnia’s costume in Julius X speaks to the play’s setting in a mythologized 1960s Harlem. Archival images of Betty X and artisanal fabric patterns from Ethiopia inspired Preston.

The character of Calpurnia has sometimes been written with an extra “h.” Calpurnia is the more historically accurate spelling for Julius Caesar’s wife; it’s also what appears in the First Folio. But some modern editions, including the Folger Shakespeare, use Calphurnia instead. Both spellings refer to the same character and both share the same Latin origin and meaning of chalice or pitcher. Both spellings are represented on these costume designs.

Speaking Shakespeare in translation

Both the historic Malcom X and the fictional Julius X join the religious and political group the Nation of Islam. As a result, in Julius X, characters speak both English and Arabic to represent the many layers of their identities, including the language of their religious beliefs.

The Cultural Administration of the League of Arab States, an organization that, like the Nation of Islam, began in the first half of the 20^th century to promote collective action, published this translation of Julius Caesar in Arabic in 1968.

The Folger holds translations of Julius Caesar in more than 30 languages.

Hearing the battlefield tension

Key elements of Shakespeare’s text find themselves echoed in Letson’s play to create Julius X’s unique soundscape. Having first appeared alongside all of Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio, Julius Caesar debuted as a stand-alone quarto in 1684. In the text for Act 5, scene 1,  conspirators Brutus’s and Cassius’s army faces Octavius’s and Antony’s loyalist troops. The men hurl insults at one another, defending their competing legacies before the battle that ultimately sees the loyalists triumph and Brutus perish.

In Julius X, this pre-battle wordplay transforms into a rap battle. Poetry is the engine that drives Julius X, bringing together elements of spoken word, hip-hop, and call-and-response—all of which contribute to the sonic fabric of the Black community. Even in this moment of insurmountable divide within the play’s community, the characters turn to their shared musical heritage to express themselves.

Touching death

In many of Shakespeare’s works, daggers are harbingers of death. This dagger comes from Henry Irving’s production of Hamlet, a play that explores the circumstances of death. The context of one’s death is also considered in both Julius Caesar and Julius X. Unlike Shakespeare’s Brutus who throws himself upon a sword held by a friend, in Julius X, Brutus dies alone, stabbing himself with a knife.