INTERVIEW: SHANA COOPER speech on a public issue Caesar has before he’s killed is harsh. He denies mercy to Publius Cimber. SHANA COOPER Denying mercy for Publius
Cimber is a declaration of his constancy, his singular constancy as a leader. The language he uses there does suggest an amount of ego: he says he’s “constant as the Northern Star.” He does want the crown. The crown is the thing that leads to his decision to go against the signs of nature, and the gods, and his own wife—to go to the Senate on the day he gets killed. To that degree Caesar is a tyrant, a figure of enormous ego who is determined to achieve a height of power. But the other fascinating aspect of him is his frailties, that he can’t hear out of one ear, that he has epilepsy, that his marriage is a barren one. Who knows whose fault that is? So there is a sense of undeniable mortality nipping at his heels.
JONATHAN KALB
loves. He spends the rest of his life haunted by that decision. I don’t know that that means he’s dishonorable. But there’s a great cost. It costs him everything. The first part of the play feels like an examination of his crucial moments of choice, and the consequences of those choices. The play follows Brutus moment by moment, his vacillation and debate with himself. He’s wrestling with his soul, and then once the choice is made, the play is the story of the consequences. JONATHAN KALB How do you see the Brutus-
Portia marriage? SHANA COOPER I love both the marriages in
also important to that counter-view you describe.
this play, because I think that as flawed as they are—these husbands are having trouble listening to their wives, revealing themselves fully to their wives—they actually feel like two happy marriages. Two marriages in which people really love each other. It’s extremely rare in Shakespeare to see one marriage where people love each other, let alone
SHANA COOPER Yeah. The thing that converts
Below: Tiffany Rachelle Stewart (Calphurnia) and Rocco Sisto (Julius Caesar).
JONATHAN KALB His relationship with Calpurnia is
him, temporarily, from his determination to go to the Senate is when she says, “Lay it on me.” Calpurnia says, “You can say it was my fault. I was worried about you.” I think there’s something fascinating about that relationship, this woman who can say, “I know you need this to not be about your own fear. Make it about mine.” JONATHAN KALB The conspirator Decius Brutus
doesn’t have to work very hard to change Caesar’s mind again. SHANA COOPER That’s right. All he has to do
is talk about the crown. I mean, he reinterprets the dream, and the crux of his interpretation is, “Today they mean to offer you a crown.” That seals the deal. JONATHAN KALB And Brutus? How do you see him?
Does the choice of violence make Brutus dishonorable? SHANA COOPER I don’t have a clear answer to
that question. The choice to use violence does lead Brutus to lose everything and everyone he 16
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Opposite page: Julian Remulla (Lucius) in Theatre for a New Audience's production of THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR, directed by Shana Cooper. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.