Dubai theatre breathes life into Julius Caesar

Are you someone who is intimidated by Shakespeare? Then you might appreciate H72 Productions' presentation of Julius Caesar - a modern re-telling of a play that was believed to have been written in 1599, but whose themes of betrayal, loyalty and friendship are still extremely relevant today. We caught up with director Arjun Burman, and actors Kirin Hilliar and Hussain Hadi recently to find out what exactly went into transforming this classic play into one modern audiences could relate to and appreciate.
Kirin Hilliar
Day job: Psychologist
Role in Julius Caesar: Caius Cassius
On her theatre background
I did a little bit of theatre when I was in school. And then when I went to university it kind of fell by the wayside. When I started working and moved to Dubai three years ago, that's when I really threw myself back into it. For the last two years I've done a number of different productions with different theatre groups, all in Dubai.

On her character, Cassius
What our director Arjun's done which is nice is - it's primarily an all male cast and Cassius was male - but he decided to recast that as female. I see her as the mastermind of the whole conspiracy and she first plants the seed in Brutus' mind about killing Caesar. She's very manipulative in terms of how she goes about convincing each conspirator to participate. Because they each have different motivations. And so she's able to identify what their weaknesses are, what their concerns are and play on that. Her own motivation is that she doesn't like Caesar personally.
And she's bitter that this person has been able to accumulate so much power so quickly when really he doesn't deserve it. And so there's that element of Cassius as a seducer of each member of this party that we're quite conscious about. She's seducing people through intelligence rather than playing on her feminine wiles or anything like that. Because that was important from a feminist perspective.

'Is she that much of a villain?'
We (the cast and director) talked a lot about the similarities between Cassius and characters from House of Cards, Frank Underwood and his wife. I sort of bear that in mind. Cassius is the one who drives it initially and only later does she come to realise the negative consequences of what she's done and have a sense of guilt about the implications this has on everybody around her. I've really enjoyed playing her.
She's the first villain I've played; but what I've tried to balance is this, is she that much of a villain or is she just pragmatic, more assertive about going for what she wants because all these people had these concerns already in mind, she's just fostered that, set the spark for the blaze to start.

On parallels with the modern world
What I think is really relevant is how the conspirators convince themselves that their cause is just. But the way that they go about instigating change is through undemocratic processes. Their rationale is that the end justifies the means. But actually because they took it upon themselves to kind of inflict this change it leads to all-out war. So this raises some interesting concepts - if you do know that there are problems within the political system of your country, what is the responsible and ethical and moral way to go about changing that and how do you keep it democratic?

Why she loves theatre
As an audience it's great to watch theater and the immediacy of it and as an actor to have those immediate responses, so if there's a joke and they laugh you know it's done well, if somebody misses a line and you have to cover that up or if a prop falls - I would say the improvisational elements of live theatre are very invigorating. Even though you're exhausted by the end of it, it's brilliant fun and you meet all these interesting people - I meet people through theatre that I would never meet through work or through my other personal social outings.
Arjun Burman
Day job: Sales strategy and planning
Role in Julius Caesar: Director, Julius Caesar
Theatre background
I've been in theater for about ten years and I started off as an actor and since then I've moved into multiple roles. H72 Productions was initially Backstage, when we first started about nine years ago. We started as an independent, community theatre group and just a group of people sitting around a table saying, we love doing theatre - let's make it happen. And literally it was just ten people going, 'how do we do it?' It's grown from a pure grassroots level. I remember we were lucky if we got three people to do an audition.

On his roles
I am the director and I also play Julius Caesar. His character is arrogant, he's full of himself, he believes that he is almost immortal, when people warn him that the people around him might be conspiring against him, he brushes it off.
It's unknown whether Caesar would have been a tyrant because the play is left open to a little bit of interpretation. It's not made clear. It's good in a way. The idea of the play in my opinion is that using violence and bloodshed to achieve such political aims will never lead to anything good, it will never lead to anything that you would want. So the play is really a cautionary tale against using that kind of conspiracy.
I think Julius Caesar's character is pivotal to the play in that he drives a lot of the action, even though he may not be in every single scene but his spectre looms over everybody, he casts a very big shadow and I think that is so relevant in today's day and age. You can look around and you see politicians whose names you know evoke something. If you say the name Donald Trump, it means something. Julius Caesar as well has that kind of pull and sway in the play.

Why he picked this play
I've been following the news for the last two years and all the politics that have been going around the world, the change that has been happening, not just from a political perspective but the effect of the Internet and how people have started to grow into their own echo chambers. There was one particular line in the play that stood out for me - Men may construe things clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
When something happens, you look at it from your perspective, it may not be what actually happened, it may not be related to facts but it's just what you see. And that was just such a powerful and relevant line for today's world. I picked up that line and went through the entire script and realised there's so much that people can relate to nowadays.
Also, because it's Shakespeare and people are intimidated by Shakespeare, I thought, let's make it easy for them to follow the story and so we did that in terms of re-ordering a couple of events through the play. I also cast Cassius in a different gender than what is written in the play. And many other roles as well. Dialogue took on new meaning and we could interpret it the way that we saw it, from the modern lens, and that was really wonderful.

Theatre scene in Dubai
Having grown up here I can tell you that there were not a lot of options for creativity. Now people are spoiled for options. At one point we were lucky if we got three actors to come in for an audition. Now I can do a play in which there are 22 actors!
I think we're also beginning to see a lot more offbeat and original pieces and interpretations. And that to me is the hallmark of a vibrant theatre culture.
Hussain Hadi
Day job: Publishing
Role in Julius Caesar: Brutus
On his theatre background
I've done a few productions with different theatre companies in Dubai. I have played Dracula with Kirin actually - we did that last year, it was a lot of fun.

On his role as Brutus
I think a lot of people are familiar with that iconic line - Et Tu Brute (You too Brutus)! Betrayal, friendship and loyalty are themes that underline the whole play. And for my character Brutus, the key thing throughout the play is inner turmoil. He sees himself as an honourable man, to some extent he is! And he's trying to do what he feels is best for Rome. But he has to balance that with the idea that Caesar was a close friend of his and a lot of his fears were about what Caesar might do rather than what he has actually already done. It's fantastic to try to chronicle that inner struggle - his anxiety, people feeding on his fears, and eventually he's driven to turn against his friend.
The role was very challenging because he's a stoic character, he's a senator, and he's supposed to be in control and some of the turmoil is overt, so he expresses it, but a lot of it is internal. So one of the things I have to do is make sure that the struggle is seen throughout the play, so you can understand the motivation behind his decisions and you see those moments where he is facing the inner turmoil but he controls himself.
It's a fantastic character to play and you can relate to a lot of it in terms of, what does it mean to love your country, what does it mean to be honourable, to be loyal, a good citizen.

On parallels with the modern world
With the world we've had in the last twelve months I think the themes from the play are probably more relevant than ever. The wonderful thing is that it's rooted in history. These are all historical characters and Julius Caesar was one of the greatest military commanders when Rome was a democracy and then he became so powerful from his conquests that people genuinely asked the questions, is he too powerful, has it gone too far? So I think you can relate that to today and without mentioning any particular names, you can see parallels with very powerful people today. Have they gone too far? What does it mean to be a citizen of a country?
One of the other elements of the play is how emotional and fickle the masses can be, the controlling of information and the importance of truth. I think today you watch how everything is stage-managed and wonder what the truth is. We live in an age of what we call fake news and counter-fake news and too much news. And in doing this play, I feel it's as modern as if it was written for today.
EVENT DETAILS
. What: William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by H72 Productions
. Where: The Junction, Alserkal Avenue
. When: Thursday, October 26-Saturday, October 28
. Cost: Dhs100
. Tickets: Available at PlatinumList.net
. For more info: www.thejunctiondubai.com
enid@khaleejtimes.com