Lend them your ears: Julius Caesar reimagined

If one is tempted, in these divisive times, to try (in Hamlet’s words) “to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing, end them,” let William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar serve as a cautionary tale. It also serves as inspiration for two lauded productions onstage this month: Julius X by Al Letson (running at the Folger Theatre through October 26), which reimagines the last days of Malcolm X through the structure of Shakespeare’s tragedy; and Rome Sweet Rome, a hip hop “add-rap-tation” by the Q Brothers Collective (running at Chicago Shakespeare Theater through October 19). Both works incorporate Shakespeare’s language while adding their own poetic idioms and, while exploring contemporary themes of political upheaval and personal betrayal, illuminate aspects of Julius Caesar we might have missed.

Letson, who in addition to being a playwright and poet is also a Peabody Award-winning journalist, had one of those brilliant ideas other writers are jealous of (at least this one is). He uses Shakespeare’s characters and plot to tell a fictionalized version of the last three days in the life of Malcolm X, and it’s astonishing how well, as Folger Director Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper says, those events “map so neatly onto the play of Julius Caesar.” Letson’s drama transforms ancient Rome into 1960s Harlem and depicts Julius X as not a tyrant, but a popular leader with evolving thoughts on the Civil Rights struggle and the future of Harlem which pose a threat to the Nation of Islam. Letson powerfully renders the emotional heart of Shakespeare’s tragedy—the disillusionment that Brutus and Cassius feel for their former comrade Caesar—by adding a scene between Julius X and Brutus that shows us their brotherly affection in a way Shakespeare doesn’t, while dramatizing more effectively their diverging goals.

In his entertaining interview on the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, Letson shares that “Shakespeare became a little bit of a superpower” for him in high school because he understood the text and was able to translate it for his classmates. That facility with language, as well as rhythms picked up from his minister father, allows Letson to infuse Shakespeare’s poetry with his own cadences drawn from hip-hop and  preaching, the latter of which seems only appropriate since, as Dr. Peter Kirwan points out, Julius Caesar is “the only Shakespeare play which uses the word ‘pulpit’.”

While Julius X focuses on its characters, Rome Sweet Rome—as its title suggests—emphasizes the central metaphor of its setting. The Q Brothers satirize a world that resembles our current moment, with references ranging from the ancient Greeks to modern rap and hip-hop, and broadly drawn characters from all across the political spectrum. The show doesn’t model Caesar on any present-day leader or indeed make the character of Brutus particularly “honorable,” as Marc Antony describes him in Shakespeare. In fact, the tipping point of this particular Caesar’s tyranny is a ban on bread, which sparks Casca’s gospel-infused song “I Need a Sandwich” and a carb-based revolution. As in Julius X, whose title character is slain on February 21, 1965, Caesar’s assassination in Rome Sweet Rome also doesn’t take place on the Ides of March but instead on Halloween, allowing for the fake blood of the holiday to disguise the real blood from the killing (and also for ridiculously comic costumes). Caesar’s death also happens close to the end of the 80-minute performance, because unlike Shakespeare and Julius X, the Q Brothers aren’t interested in Brutus and Cassius’s regret; they focus smartly on the dissolution of Rome.

But even in this comedy, the stakes of societal collapse are taken seriously. Rome Sweet Rome’s most powerful moment comes near the end, when there’s a weird uncomfortable silence and the actor playing Brutus appears to have forgotten his lines. At first, you think the character has become inarticulate in his regret for the assassination he took part in, but then you understand the actor is feeling regret at the “silly” performance he’s taking part in. The world is “scary,” he says in this quiet confessional moment. “I’m scared,” he says, and then he asks us, “Aren’t you scared?” It’s a brilliant fourth-wall breakdown that acknowledges the serious and terrifying world the show is making fun of. Just as Shakespeare used Rome as a metaphor to portray the power struggles of his own time, so do the Qs use Rome Sweet Rome to satirize the political tensions in ours.

Because make no mistake: Rome Sweet Rome is a comedy that consists mostly of songs and of rhyming couplets, which co-author Jax Doran explains, in this fun backstage interview, are a great delivery system for punchlines. “It’s musical storytelling,” his co-author Pos Pringle agrees. “Hip-hop is a participatory art form, as was Elizabethan theater.” Original Q Brother JQ concurs and emphasizes that Chicago Shakespeare’s thrust stage “forces the performers into the audience so it makes you interact. Verse,” he continues, whether it be Shakespearean or contemporary, “is meant to be experienced and heard and immersed in.”

As good as the scripts are on the page, they can’t capture the power of seeing them performed live; to see the language physicalized through choreography and lights and audience interaction, or experience how potent silence can be when the poetry and the music just stops and characters and spectators alike ponder the decisions being made. Despite being based on a 400-year-old tragedy, Julius X and Rome Sweet Rome prove that a verse drama and a musical comedy about the unintended consequences of political violence feel more timely and necessary than ever.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Rome Sweet Rome
on stage through October 19