ROMAN TRAGEDIES

About the show

The three Roman Tragedies reveal the political game in all its facets. Coriolanus takes place during the rise of the Roman Republic. The eponymous hero refuses to submit to the changed political constellation. He defies the masses and their new representatives and is banished. Ultimately he takes up arms against Rome, his own city. Julius Caesar acquires power because, by contrast, he is a virtuoso in manipulating the masses. A number of politicians fear the advent of a dictatorship and remove him in order to save the democracy, but by then it is already too late to reverse the changed political climate. In Antony & Cleopatra, global politics and the passionate love between the Roman Antony and the Egyptian Cleopatra become intertwined. Antony’s inner conflict between public responsibility and his heart’s desire leads to a bloodbath.