Aquila’s `Julius Caesar’ blends themes of circularity, tyranny

It is a history that repeats itself time and time again. A potently ambitious figure rises to power and, as he infects the people with a false sense of his qualifications, the advisers around him get nervous and start their own plotting. As the populace increases its adulation, someone has to ask about the well-being of the state. After all, how much power should one man have?

The Aquila Theatre Company of London revived such a predicament in a bold and provocative production of Shakepeare’s tragedy “Julius Caesar,” which was performed Sunday at the Maine Center for the Arts.

A traveling troupe, Aquila uses few props to convey a full sense of time and place. The dominating image in this production was a large, luminous circle on the stage floor. The actors performed nearly all the action of the play within this circle and, often, when exiting, moved in circular lines.

It all comes around again, the movement suggested. But director Robert Richmond went one step further by infusing the production with the theme of 20th century tyranny, and invoked the 1937 New York production by Orson Welles. Some indeterminate form of fascism took over the mood, rhythm and colors of Richmond’s stage. Dwarfing red panels of cloth hung from the ceiling in a nearly Soviet largeness. The men wore military tunics that suggested czarist factions and clicked the heels of their high black boots the way a Nazi might. Even the peasants had a starved debasement in their eyes and shouts.

Similarly, the movements of the actors had a dictatorial crispness that underscored the style-heavy hand of the director. Servants and senators alike marched tersely through their scenes. Only David Wiles, as Caesar, moved with a quirky fluidity — one that captured both the cunning and the superstition of a leader who is mighty even after death.

Fight scenes and set changes involved heavy use of atmospheric lighting (including strobes), and large panels of billowy cloth. Fortunately, the only miking for the show was for the original music and sound effects, which actors performed onstage with the help of a cello, recorder, violin, drums and wind instruments.

The overwhelming strength of this company, however, was its thorough artistic vision. Richmond’s approach was not unprecedented, but neither was it stale. And he chose a cast of actors whose assets generally included loud and clear voices, imaginative but not overdone character work, and the ability to move gracefully and cooperatively as an ensemble.

Tonight, the company will perform Aristophanes’ “The Birds” at 7 p.m. at the Maine Center for the Arts. For information or tickets, call 581-1755.