ROMEO AND JULIET - Stratford Festival
ROMEO AND JULIET - Stratford Festival
ROMEO AND JULIET - Stratford Festival
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CAESAR <strong>AND</strong> CLEOPATRA<br />
By George Bernard Shaw<br />
Director – Des McAnuff<br />
<strong>Festival</strong> Theatre<br />
Set Designer – Robert Brill August 7 to November 9<br />
Costume Designer – Paul Tazewell Opens August 17, 2008<br />
Lighting Designer – Robert Thomson<br />
Composer – Rick Fox<br />
Sound Designer – Jim Neil<br />
Dramaturge – Robert Blacker<br />
Movement – Lisa Shriver<br />
______________________________________________________________________<br />
ABOUT THE PLAY<br />
OVERVIEW<br />
This five-act play was written in 1898 and first published in Three Plays for Puritans in<br />
1901. It was first staged in 1907 and starred legendary Shakespearean actor Johnston<br />
Forbes-Robertson as Julius Caesar. In fact, Shaw specifically wrote the part of Caesar for<br />
Forbes-Robertson. Shaw’s version of this classic story focuses on the idea that the<br />
impetus for the relationship between the great Roman general and the Egyptian queen<br />
was politics, rather than love.<br />
SYNOPSIS<br />
The year is 706 BCE (46 BCE by the Christian calendar). The setting is the Syrian border<br />
of Egypt. The great commander Julius Caesar travels to Egypt and encounters a young<br />
and immature Cleopatra. The political master acts as a mentor to the young queen,<br />
guiding and shaping her into a powerful monarch, though it soon becomes clear that<br />
Cleopatra has some firmly held opinions of her own.<br />
In this version Caesar is portrayed in Shaw’s image, and the character of Caesar is often<br />
acknowledged as Shaw’s first “superman” hero. Shaw plays with the historical record in<br />
other ways too: while it is generally accepted that Cleopatra met Caesar when she was<br />
21, and had a son by him, this play shows no hint of a sexual relationship between the<br />
two.<br />
SOURCES <strong>AND</strong> ORIGINS<br />
Shaw’s major source for this play was German historian Theodore Mommsen’s History<br />
of Rome, published in the 1850s. His work was known for the contemporary feel it gave<br />
to Roman life and the image he gave Julius Caesar as a democrat, republican and social<br />
reformer. Shaw maintained that he stuck closely to Mommsen’s description of Caesar as<br />
a hero while writing the play.<br />
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