'Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy'

Performed in Italian by I Termini Company Benvenuti / Lungta Production in collaboration with Teatro di Romo, from Rome, Italy. Where else but from Rome for Julius Caesar? In a sparse new translation by prizewinning playwright Vincenzo Manna, Andrea Baracco's Julius Caesar is set in a dreamlike yet contemporary Rome. The production opened in the ancient, haunting theatre in Gualtieri in the north of Italy, and was performed at the prestigious Teatro di Roma prior to the Globe. When Caesar returns to Rome from the wars a virtual dictator, Brutus and his republican friends resolve that his ambition must be curbed – which in Rome can mean only one thing: the great general must be assassinated. But once the deed is done, the idealistic conspirators must reckon with the forces of a new power bloc, led by Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavius. When their armies close at Philippi, will Caesar’s ghost be avenged?