SOURCE: "Introduction to Commentary" in William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, edited by Maurice Charney, Applause Books, 1996, pp. xix-xxv.

In the following essay, Vaughan looks at Julius Caesar from the point of view of performance, discussing such elements as setting, stage design, casting, and directorial modifications to the play.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is both tragedy and history play, but however readers and critics approach it, stage directors must deal with it as a play written for performance in the theatre.

The Setting

The author of a play to be played in the neutral, architectural theatre of Shakespeare's day had only, in order to set place and time of day, to provide indications early in the dialogue of each scene as to when and where the new unit of action was occurring. Thus, scene design was a matter of words.

Notice how, in the first scene of Julius Caesar, Flavius says...