The Public Theater’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis directs JULIUS CAESAR, Shakespeare’s play of politics and power, last seen in the Park 17 years ago. Rome’s leader, Julius Caesar, is a force unlike any the city has seen. Magnetic, populist, irreverent, he seems bent on absolute power. A small band of patriots, devoted to the country’s democratic traditions, must decide how to oppose him. Shakespeare’s political masterpiece has never felt more contemporary.

The thing with great plays, and Shakespeare in particular, is that they seem to have been written about the time when they’re being produced, and sometimes eerily, about the people witnessing said productions. Romeo and Juliet never aches more than when we are experiencing forbidden love of our own, King Lear strikes us as intrusive when we see a loved one close to death, and there is nary a person who hasn’t at one point felt like the existential prince of Hamlet. So it makes sense that a production of Julius Caesar would strike as more relevant than ever when America is on the brink of totalitarianism under the hands of the Republican tyrant currently in office. And yet, the beauty of Shakespeare is that we are reminded that we are always on the brink of totalitarianism, even under the most peaceful and progressive of regimes. Power corrupts, it can’t help but seduce those weak enough to surrender to its promise of endless bliss, and the threat of walking into the figurative dark side remains for as long as temptation exists. Perhaps dressing Gregg Henry’s title dictator in a navy suit, overlong red tie and giving him a cereal blond hairdo wasn’t the most subtle of moves in Oskar …Read more