In October 2011, following two enormously strong
productions for Bell Shakespeare – John Bell’s exuberant Much Ado About Nothing, and Michael Gow’s theatrically-encyclopaedic
Faustus – Peter Evans’ production of Julius Caesar arrived in Sydney at the
end of a four-month national tour. Intelligent, concise, and subtly condensed
for a cast of ten, Evans’ Caesar was a
rare example of a production which eloquently captured the contemporary mood
(and political climate) in a raw, poetic and theatrical way. Robust, haunting,
and profoundly gripping, it made me sit up and take notice of Evans’ work, and remains one of the
cornerstone productions in my theatrical fascination with Shakespeare.
Peter
Evans is Bell Shakespeare’s co-artistic director,
and is about to take the reins of the company once John Bell concludes work on The Tempest. I sat down with Evans at
the end of July for a discussion about playing the classics, his career as a
director, the challenges facing a specialist company like Bell Shakespeare in Australia
