RSC'S JULIUS CAESAR COMES TO THE LOWRY DIRECT FROM STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) brings its new production of Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar to The Lowry, Salford next month.
The production runs from Tuesday 20th to Saturday 24th June, as part of a nine-date national tour direct from a hit run in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
This visceral new production is directed by Atri Banerjee (Hobson’s Choice & The Glass Menagerie, The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), and will feature Thalissa Teixeira as Brutus and Annabel Baldwin, who is non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them, as Cassius – the roles of the leaders who plot to kill Caesar
The full cast is: Shyvonne Ahmmad (Swing), Jamal Ajala (Lucius), Mercedes Assad (Marullus/Artemidorus), Annabel Baldwin (Cassius), Nigel Barrett (Julius Caesar), Matt Ray Brown (Cicero), Matthew Bulgo (Casca), Ella Dacres (Octavius Caesar), Joshua Dunn (Cinna The Poet/Popilius/Carpenter), Katie Erich (Caius Ligarius/Cobbler), Niamh Finlay (The Soothsayer), Annabel Baldwin (Cassius), Gina Isaac (Decius Brutus), Robert Jackson (Flavius/Cinna The Conspirator), Tom Kanji (Metellus Cimber/Lepidus), Nadi Kemp-Sayfi (Portia), Jimena Larraguivel (Calpurnia/Pindarus), Pedro Leandro (Trebonius), William Robinson (Mark Antony) and Thalissa Teixeira (Brutus).
The production will also feature a Community Chorus. There will be a different group of people playing the Chorus in each venue the production visits, with each group made up of community leaders, workers and volunteers from the local area. This production of Julius Caesar explores questions such as gender in leadership and power, and the Chorus will provide a commentary on the politics of the play from the perspective of identities that have been marginalised, either at different points in history or in our world today.
Talking about the production, director Atri Banerjee said: “Julius Caesar is the perfect play for our age of emergency, asking uncomfortable questions about today. When asked to imagine a better future for us all, what resources do we have left? What are the limits of peaceful activism? How far would you, personally, go, to make the world a better place?
“By thinking of the roles in this play across intersectional lines – gender, race, class, disability, among others – we’re inviting audience members to think of their own place within the status quo and what might be at stake for each of us within it.
Joining Atri on the creative team are: Rosanna Vize (Set Designer and Co-Costume Designer), Tomás Palmer (Co-Costume Designer), Lee Curran (Lighting), Jasmin Kent Rodgman (Music), Claire Windsor (Sound), Jennifer Jackson (Movement), Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown (Fights), Alison Bomber (Voice and Text) and Matthew Dewsbury CDG (Casting).