A new take on Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare produced at Coastal Carolina University, directed by Gwendolyn Schwinke was an empowering and motivating piece.

Gwendolyn Schwinke, theater professor at Coastal Carolina, directed an empowering and motivating rendition of Julius Caesar.

It was a full female cast with leads featuring some familiar faces that are approaching a soon graduation: Kennedi Brunstad (Julius Caeser) and Korilyn Hendricks (Brutus). These two women filled the space with power by bringing their characters to life and connecting with the audience. Members of the audience could feel their pain and emotion behind what they were saying throughout the play.

Schwinke took William Shakespeare's classic and made it a modernized rebel punk version featuring songs from Sleater Kinney, which radiated the feel of each performance and brought something new as a perspective.

A whole female cast, led by Sleater Kinney, is an interesting mix, which made for a rocking and ultimately radical show. These women on stage were making a stance and showcasing that "girl style" is something that should be highlighted more often than it currently may be. This is a movement brought by the Theatre Department to promote to the notion of “exhuming the idols, bury the friends… they’re not giving in.”

As Cassius, played by Autumn McNutt, drove a main concept of the plot to rebel and raise awareness to making the city a better place to live, while convincing Brutus (Hendricks) that rebelling would help the city in which they lived, initially be a better place than it was. By the end of the play, Brutus (Hendricks), even says that he (she), loved Caesar but loved Rome more, ultimatley promoting the power that women have instilled inside of them and not giving up even when it seems tough

On that note, maybe the moral of the story is, if you’re willing to make a sacrifice for something you deem important, don’t give up on it and keep pushing for it.