Why Dame Harriet Walter is playing Brutus in a Newquay school
A school sports hall on the edge of Newquay. A cast of women playing prisoners. And Brutus, played by one of the most decorated stage actors in the country.
For four nights from this Monday (28 September), the Royal Shakespeare Company is bringing Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female production of Julius Caesar to Treviglas Academy, with Olivier Award-winning actor Dame Harriet Walter leading the company as Brutus. The stop in Newquay is part of a five-week tour into partner schools and communities across England, produced by the RSC with KPPL Productions.
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When you can see it
Most of the week is for students, but a limited number of community performances are open to the public at Treviglas Academy:
- Monday 28 September at 7pm
- Tuesday 29 September at 7pm
- Wednesday 30 September at 7pm
- Thursday 1 October at 7pm, followed by a post-show conversation
Tickets are £5 and are available through Hall for Cornwall’s Julius Caesar event page. Performances take place in the school’s Sports Hub. Hall for Cornwall has also published a longer look at the production and its partnership with the RSC.
Ancient Rome, seen from a prison
The play is staged by a group of female “prisoners” who perform a 90-minute version of Julius Caesar. As they act out a story of leadership, control and corruption, their own fights for freedom and justice, and the power politics of prison life, come into sharp focus.
Caesar’s growing dominance in Rome puts democracy at risk. A group of conspirators recruits the popular senator Brutus to help assassinate him and reclaim the republic. But as terror and chaos take hold, Shakespeare’s play shows how the violent overthrow of a tyrant rarely leads to a peaceful outcome.
The production was first staged at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012 as the opening part of Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare Trilogy. It went on to play in London, New York, prisons and schools, and The Observer called it “one of the most important theatrical events of the past twenty years”.
This touring version is part of the RSC’s First Encounters with Shakespeare programme, which creates edited 90-minute versions of the plays for young people who may be seeing Shakespeare performed for the first time.
A week inside Treviglas Academy
The company will be in residence at the school from Monday 28 September to Friday 2 October. Treviglas Academy is an RSC Lead Associate School, working in a long-term partnership with the company that uses Shakespeare’s plays to unlock potential in young people.
Teachers across different subjects will adapt their lessons to connect with the production and its themes. There will be workshops with Year 10 GCSE Drama students and the school’s Drama Club, plus debates, career talks and conversations with members of the company about how the play speaks to today, and how young people might use their own voices to create change in their communities.
Up to four students will also get to shadow the touring production team, a hands-on look at backstage and technical careers and what it takes to put a show on the road.
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From Newquay to Stratford-upon-Avon
Some students are going further. The school’s Young Creatives are working more closely with RSC practitioners and members of the company, picking out the parts of the play that feel most relevant to them and developing their own creative responses.
That work will be shared at a Young Creatives Festival at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday 21 November. Curated by the RSC’s Youth Advisory Board, the festival will bring together 200 young people from across the tour to share work about the kinds of change they want to see in their schools and communities.
The conversation after Thursday’s show
The performance on Thursday 1 October will be followed by a community conversation with members of the company, the audience and invited speakers from the local community and the criminal justice system.
The question on the table: what support and creative opportunities could be made available to young people who are at risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system?
That link runs through the whole production. Phyllida Lloyd and KPPL Productions are again working with Criminal Justice Associate Artist Rachel Frank and women from HMP New Hall, so that the prison setting is rooted in lived experience. The full company spent two days with the HMP New Hall drama group ahead of the tour, and the women’s own creative responses to the play will be shared through the schools programme and with audiences in Stratford-upon-Avon.
“If they cannot afford to come to us, we are coming to them”
Director Phyllida Lloyd said: “Our pledge with Harriet to take Julius Caesar into schools marks our belief that young people deserve world-class theatre, the absolute best of the best. If they cannot afford to come to us, we are coming to them.”
She added: “In our own communities, many of the themes we explored in 2012 (unheard women’s voices, the pressures on young men and the manipulating power of social media) seem ever more in need of attention. If there is a play for today, to travel the country and inspire the young voices of the future, this is the one.”
Jacqui O’Hanlon, the RSC’s Deputy Executive Director and Director of Creative Learning and Engagement, said the company now has a 20-year evidence base showing the difference an arts-rich education makes to a child’s life and learning.
“All children should have this entitlement, but all children don’t,” she said. “Where a child lives and the kind of school they go to is still the greatest predictor of whether they will get access to high quality arts experiences, with all the benefits they bring.”
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Who’s in the cast
Joining Dame Harriet Walter are original company members Jackie Clune as Julius Caesar, Leah Harvey as Mark Antony, Jennifer Joseph as Trebonius, Jenny Jules as Cassius and Carolina Valdés as Casca.
They are joined by Kosar Ali as Calpurnia, Metellus Cimber and Pindarus, Shona Babayemi as Cinna the Conspirator, Darcy Dixon as Lucius, Shalisha James-Davis as Portia and Octavius, and Siân Stephens as the Soothsayer.
Set and costume design is by Bunny Christie, with lighting by Zeynep Kepekli, sound design by Pete Malkin (original sound design by Tom Gibbons), movement direction by Carolina Valdés (original movement direction by Ann Yee), fight direction by Kate Waters and voice and text work by Barbara Houseman. Casting is by Matthew Dewsbury CDG, with original casting by Anne McNulty and Vicky Richardson. The associate director is Jordana Golbourn, the associate set designer is Reiltin Hart and the associate costume designer is Deborah Andrews.
After the schools tour, Julius Caesar moves to The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon, running from Thursday 5 to Saturday 28 November.
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