Seton Hill production puts modern spin on Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar'

Feb. 23—History tends to repeat itself — a notion that will be explored in a Seton Hill University Theatre and Dance Program production of "Julius Caesar."

William Shakespeare's classic drama of political intrigue and personal honor will be staged Friday and Saturday and March 3 and 4 in the university's Performing Arts Center in downtown Greensburg.

In the play first performed in 1599, Shakespeare drew parallels between ancient Rome and Elizabethan England. Director Denise Pullen also sees connections to the present day.

"When I approach a piece, it's often my method to take its history and find out how it speaks to us in the present day," said Pullen, an associate theater professor and chair of the theater and dance department. "Certainly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, this play rings so true."

In the play, jealous conspirators convince Caesar's friend Brutus to join an assassination plot against Caesar, fearing that the dictator has gained too much power. After killing him on the Ides of March, they are driven out of Rome and engaged in battle in Greece by Caesar's loyal general, Mark Antony.

"There's fake news when the conspirators send notes to Brutus to try to tell him why he should overthrow Caesar," Pullen said. "There's certainly gaslighting among Antony, Caesar and Brutus.

"My tack was to try to shine light on the idea that democracy is being threatened all over the world," she said. "Even though we've kept all the references to Rome, we are trying to say that it can be anywhere — Italy, the United States, Israel, any country that is teetering on autocracy.

"That's really what frightens me about the world right now."

The Seton Hill production sets the action in 2029 — a time when Pullen said the worst-case scenario might be that elections are no longer held on a regular cycle and are always contested.

Antony and his army are clad in modern fatigue-style uniforms.

"Brutus' army is made up of defecting senators, street folks and just concerned citizens, so their attire looks handmade," Pullen said.

Tricky things

One challenge in contemporizing the play was dealing with its depictions of violence, including self-harm and suicide.

"If you take it in a historical context, you understand that those were heroic acts when Shakespeare set them in ancient Greece," Pullen said. "By today's standards, those are tricky things to put on stage.

"We have such a sensitivity about suicide and self-harm," she said. "Those are actions that we take very seriously, and we did take them very seriously during the rehearsal process."

The cast worked with an intimacy coordinator for issues of consent, boundaries and actions that could make them uncomfortable, Pullen said.

"Instances of them falling on their own sword or asking others to assist them in suicide are a little more dangerous among today's audiences," she said. "Most of (our actors) are pretty comfortable, mostly because we make an environment where they can be comfortable.

"We are careful not just in the language that we use but in checking in with them all the time, which is a process consistently used in theater now."

A scene in which Shakespeare has Brutus' wife, Portia, cut herself to prove her devotion gets a modern twist.

"We decided that a tattoo would be something that would be both permanent and contemporary, so she's tattooed with the word 'honor' on her shoulder," Pullen said. "That's a way around it that doesn't have to be so brutal, but hopefully has the same impact."

Even taking modern sensibilities into account, the cast didn't shy away from the battle scenes.

"There are some great staged fights, and the students have fun doing that," Pullen said.

The student cast includes Dimitri Apodiakos of Belle Vernon as Julius Caesar, Connery Brown of Aliquippa as Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), Samantha Sheldon of Catonsville, Md., as Brutus, and Madisyn Faux of Munhall as Portia.

While they work behind the scenes, the student tech and design crews are just as important as the actors on stage, Pullen said.

"We see the actors out there, in the finished product, but we often don't think of all the other people who are making that finished product happen," she said. "Assistant lighting designer Chris Brown really had a lot of input."

Media designer Rachel Dietsch, whom Pullen calls "a remarkable artist," assembled film clips and photos that are projected throughout the play.

Curtain times for "Julius Caesar" will be 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and March 3 and 4, and 2 p.m. Saturday and March 4.

Tickets are $15, or $5 for students with Seton Hill ID. Non-Seton Hill students with valid ID can purchase advance tickets for $13 or $5 rush tickets five minutes before curtain, subject to availability.

Box office opens three hours before each performance. For information, call 724-552-2929 or visit setonhill.edu/events.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .