Theatre review: Julius Caesar(Icarus / Southwark Playhouse)

I wonder if Julius Caesar is another play that's currently on the syllabus, as Southwark Playhouse had a production from Lazarus Theatre Company scheduled which fell through; instead of cancelling, they replaced it with a completely different production of the same Shakespeare play from Icarus Theatre Collective, a company specialising in creative captioning who've previously presented Ionesco at the venue. Max Lewendel's production has apparently gone through extensive R&D, something I wish I could say was better reflected in what's ended up on stage in The Large. Instead we're in a dystopian future, one theoretically embedded in very modern concerns about AI and online mobs, but in design more obviously rooted in the kind of 1980s sci-fi that tried to remake Mad Max on a 30p budget.

In a cast some of whom are onstage and some only appear in projections, Julius Caesar (William Travis) is an online presence, possibly an AI, who at the start of the story has unseated the tyrannical Pompey and become hugely popular. But Cassius (Michael Skellern) believe the people's rush to install him in power will quickly lead to a new tyrant, and gathers a faction of conspirators to assassinate him - knowing that getting Caesar's former ally Brutus (Rowan Winter) to join will be critical.

In Act III Scene 3 Cinna the Poet (Grace Cherry,) a character we've never seen before who just happens to have the same name as one of the conspirators, is mistaken for her namesake and killed by an angry mob in retribution for Caesar's assassination. This scene works so spectacularly well in Lewendel's otherwise baffling production that it sticks out, feeling very much like it must have been the inspiration for the whole enterprise: The mob are an online one, spreading misinformation about Cinna then doxxing her so she can be attacked for real. As a real mob tears her apart we see on screen the instigators react, some in shock, some in satisfaction. It's a perfect modern-day relevance to point out just a few weeks after an Olympic boxer had to fend off a hate campaign on the basis that, essentially, she didn't look female enough for some people's liking.

Maybe grounding the rest of the play in the present day would have made it succeed almost as well - the first few productions of this play I saw in the '90s always seemed to be full of contemporary politicans in suits, so that approach would no doubt still work with an added focus on online misinformation. But Icarus have overthought it and ended up in the classic pitfall of trying to do sci-fi on a budget, where anything you're actually trying to say is overshadowed by the unintentionally comical design.

So designer Flavio Graff gives us a general look of black leather with assorted accessories and dangling bling; in practice this means Brutus dressed as a dalek, Casca (Gabrielle Sheppard) as Servalan, Cinna the Conspirator (Michael Elcock) having lost confidence in his Geordi La Forge cosplay halfway through getting dressed and sticking on a Zorro outfit instead, and Trebonius (Eleanor Crosswell) looking like she's about to launch into a chorus of "Feed The Birds" at any second. When Mark Antony (James Heatlie) brings out Caesar's bloodstained cloak it's no wonder everyone immediately recognises it - he clearly stole the big fluffy red coat from Joe Lycett.

Contrast this with the set, which is mainly three large wooden wardrobes which characters sometimes enter and get spun around in - tragically when they're reopened, The Lovely Debbie McGee does not emerge. Meanwhile the stage is surrounded by screens for the creative captions integral to the production to display the characters' speech: The conceit here is that the words show up in chat boxes, in theory a nicely unfussy way of integrating them into the play's universe, but often looking wobbly, especially when they try to follow the actors around the stage; I'm not sure at what point in the extensive R&D it was decided that the clearest way for people with hearing issues to follow the surtitles would be to have Grindr messages boinging around different screens*.

Will Monks' projections also go in for a very literal style at times, illustrating the dialogue to show us what a wolf, a snake, an egg and three crowns might look like. It set me off on more unintended comedy wondering which noun would get illustrated next - a ladder, fire? When someone pronounces "visage" as "Visage" I thought we might get a sketch of Michelle up. With some characters also only appearing in these projections you have to wonder if Caesar is indeed meant to be an AI†, why it matters so much that he leave the house so he can be stabbed in person, when presumably all the conspirators need to do is unplug him. Also, for a non-physical entity he sure seems to bleed a lot more than all the non-physical entities who die in the war. Then again I don't think there was a great deal of bloodshed in The Interceptor with Annabel Croft, which the war most resembles.

What I do have to give the cast credit for is uniformly understanding and conveying the language, sadly not something you can say for every Shakespeare production. Despite the high camp of everything surrounding them they largely avoid hamminess, but one sci-fi trope they've been given is - inevitably - Minority Report swiping arm gestures, so it does look like they're constantly dramatically flailing. Given the unusual circumstances in which it ended up presenting this production I feel like Icarus might have been victims of a lengthy development process getting cut short, but they've certainly ended up earning the jokes about their appropriate company name that are bound to come their way. There's about two minutes here that are absolutely, chillingly impressive; it's just a shame about the other 138.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is booking until the 5th of October at Southwark Playhouse Borough's Large Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Adrian Warner.

*also if the captions are essential to you I would recommend against sitting audience right; when the captions go onto the central wardrobe half the lines get cut off

†the digital programme phrases it as "Caesar has transcended the physical realm, emerging as a powerful entity in this advanced technological society"