ABSTRACT
Critics of the 1991 Hartford (Canada) Stage Company production of Julius Caesar noted that its director “risked conventionality” by setting the play in ancient Rome. 1 That placing Shakespeare’s political drama in its actual historical milieu was considered a “risk” says much about the stage history of the play in the final decades of the twentieth century. The majority of directors took quite literally Cassius’s prediction that Caesar’s assassination would be often reenacted “In states unborn and accents yet unknown” (3.1.113). Typically, modern dress Caesars dominated North American stages, although it was most often Latin America that was depicted.
