Dramaturg’s and Playwright’s Note on “Friends/Romans/Countrymen”

Dramaturg’s Note

Heidi Schmidt, Resident Dramaturg

Colorado Shakespeare Festival's dramaturgs research the historical, cultural and literary context of a play, helping illuminate its themes, language and relevance for today's audiences.

By the time Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 BCE, Rome had come a long way from its mythical origins. You’ve heard the stories, right? Once upon a time, a Trojan prince named Aeneas escaped the Greek destruction of his homeland, carrying his father Anchises on his back. He is divinely guided and divinely disrupted (did I mention his mom was the goddess Venus?) for years before settling in central Italy. After some scuffles with the locals, Aeneas and his son Iulus established a dynasty. Romulus and Remus came a few centuries later, and the overthrow of the tyrannous Tarquins a few centuries after that. As a national origin story, it has something for everyone: divine ancestry, epic journeys and the heroic defeat of tyrants.

In Caesar’s day, the Republic had expanded through much of the Mediterranean, aided in part by Caesar’s own military campaigns. At home in the city of Rome, however, the administrative weight of managing such vast territories, fraying alliances within the Italian peninsula, constant debates about citizenship and many other factors too complex for this short entry resulted in a series of civil wars.

Alongside this political instability, visual arts were shifting. The late Republic celebrated age, wisdom and stoicism in hyper-realistic portraits and grand, but practical architecture; the imperial age prioritized grander, idealized artistic values. Less brick, more marble. Roman literature in the first century BCE was on the cusp of a golden age. Cicero developed more sophisticated forms of rhetoric and oratory, while writers like Virgil and Livy turned toward documenting (and glorifying?) Roman past. Virgil’s most famous work, The Aeneid, was commissioned by Octavius, and enshrined the story of Aeneas into a national epic, even prophesying a coming golden age, ruled by “a Trojan Caesar,” descended from Aeneas, who would close the gates of war and count his fame among the stars.

—Heidi Schmidt

Playwright’s Note

David Davalos, Playwright

Julius Caesar is typically considered a political play—and it is!—but it’s one that takes place in a world where the supernatural is also a significant circumstance. Look for all the signs and portents (and a ghost) observed throughout and you’ll see how real that numinous world was to those Romans, and how important it was for them to interpret and follow the Will of the Gods. And they had a god for everything – there are three different Roman deities for doorways, keys and hinges—so there was a whole lot of Divine Will to sort out, as the Romans strived to do. Of course, there’s no more memorable omen than “Beware the Ides of March”: the Soothsayer was truthful, if somewhat abstract in his warning—the kind of augury that a poet might make, and that a military man hearing it might find too vague to be actionable.

We live in a world built by Caesars—Julius and his heir Octavius (later renamed Augustus)—but we don’t always recognize it.

Need proof? Ask yourself the names of the two months you can see this play performed, or why our nation’s capital looks the way it does. Same with the Roman poet Virgil—got a dollar bill on you? Look on the back above and below the pyramid for two Latin phrases, both from Virgil’s poetry, the top adapted from “Jupiter Almighty, favor our undertakings” in The Aeneid. In that epic poem, Jupiter reveals his plan to Trojan refugees for the future of Rome, culminating in a Golden Age led by “Augustus, promis’d oft, and long foretold”. Young Octavius is still a minor character in Shakespeare’s account—though he nevertheless ends up one of the undeniable victors of the drama, and he does get the last words of the play: “happy day”. Odd words to end a tragedy—but then, the outcome wasn’t tragic for everyone involved.

I prithee enjoy the play. Afterwards, remember to keep your eyes, ears and mind open—you never know when Jupiter might be trying to nudge you in the right direction.

Tickets to the 2026 production of Friends/Romans/Countrymen are now on sale at coloradoshakes.org.