Melbourne Shakespeare Company

In many ways, William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (almost certainly 1599) is a director’s rather than an actor’s play. While there have been brilliant performances associated with it – from Marlon Brando and John Gielgud to Ben Whishaw and our own Robyn Nevin – it is really the directors who make sense of it on stage, and have moulded its politics to suit the times. John Philip Kemble and William Charles Macready defined the play in the nineteenth century, with elaborately realistic sets and massive crowds, emphasising Brutus as a revolutionary figure.