Mandaar

dismantling of the welfare system, “If you have a go, you get a go”; and, most recently, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s excuse for not leaving his family holiday to support the areas destroyed by catastrophic bushfires: “I don’t hold a hose, mate.” I had the impression that the audience was meant to understand all these lines—and perhaps implicitly Shakespeare’s words too—as interchangeable, empty pieces of rhetoric that expose politicians’ narcissism. The production was clearly disturbed by the emptiness of political speech, but its palpable discomfort with the power of words stuck me as ironic. The reason why Julius Caesar is still being performed is at least partly because of its language: its impressive rhetorical feats have ensured its potency and longevity. By decrying rhetoric in all forms, the production forgot that the power and beauty of this play originates in the very political speech being critiqued. I found this production most enjoyable when it was satirizing spin in Australian political culture—after all, our previous Prime Minister was known as “Scotty from Marketing”—and criticizing the ever-rotating cast of fungible politicians whose initial declarations of democracy, hope, and principles give way to a will to power. But in all the exciting rhetorical and visual pyrotechnics, the ethical questioning central to the play and its moving story of personal sacrifice was lost. Regardless, after two years of fitful performance seasons impacted by the pandemic, it was thrilling to be in the theater again watching such an explosive production.