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Back to history A scene from the play

History is sometimes merely a series of repetitions. The Roman ruler Julius Caesar may linger in our minds thanks to Shakespeare’s powerful play and Mark Anthony’s passionate speech at the slain Caesar’s funeral. Otherwise, he appears in those fictionalised documentaries with yellowing frames that dwell on an aging Caesar’s relationship with Cleopatra.

But Bapi Bose’s play “Julius Caesar ke Aakhree Saat Din” to be staged this Monday, looks at Caesar as a symbol of rulers who once in power work only to build their “personal property.”

The promise is always for a better future, democracy and safeguarding human rights. But the promises are forgotten once in power. In the play, Caesar epitomises the ensuing battle between democracy and autocracy. The playwright thus strives to find a parallel between the Roman dictator who died in 44 BC and the contemporary political leaders.

Bose says the play acquires significance especially now when one, “tracks the global events in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries. It looks at the nature of autocracy, and also at the so-called propagators of democracy.”

Bose first staged the production in 2003, again as commentary on the times, when the Iraq war had peaked. Today, it is the situation in many South Asian countries that prompted him to mount the play again.

“It is about the way the world is developing, especially in Pakistan, Myanmar and others,” he says. The play originally written in Bengali by Nilkantha Sengupta is based on Bertolt Brecht’s short story, “Caesar und Sein Legeonar.” Manish Manoja and Bose translated it into Hindi.

The production will see a convergence of multi-media techniques. Paintings, graphics and the text will merge to recreate the mental battle of Caesar as he comes to know of the conspirators plan and his own final attempts to make his power absolute with a change in the Constitution. Probably, this is where the reference to the current political situation becomes stark.

“We have used 40 paintings in the production. The biggest one is 13-feet in height and 16-feet wide. It is the main painting and will be placed as the central panel,” says Bose.

Further, to create an atmosphere of the ominous, the final seven days in Caesar’s life will be shown against tarot cards. “The seven days work in terms of the tarots. Each shows how Caesar’s mind is working at that time,” he says.

P. ANIMA

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