On Stage With Claygate's Caesar

Jon Tarcy sang his heart out as Rolf Gruber in The Sound of Music Live in 2015. Now, his first season with the Royal Shakespeare Company is leaving audience’s hearts in their mouths.

- Julia Gregory

THERE’S a moment in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Antony and Cleopatra when Claygate actor Jon Tarcy changes the atmosphere with a gesture.

Using just a look, an unspoken order given by his character Octavius Caesar leads to violence met by a stunned reaction from the auditorium – so effective that at one performance his victim’s mother, who was in the audience, cried out in shock.

But usually, said Jon: “There’s silence afterwards.” And he can feel the audience’s hatred towards Octavius. Jon said that gesture changed a lot in rehearsal, initially Octavius was involved in the slaughter before the action was pared down. Perhaps Cassius really underestimated Octavius with the insult of the “peevish schoolboy.”

“It was something that we talked about a lot in the rehearsal room. Octavius does not really like to get his hands very dirty,” said Jon. “For a 12-year-old boy to be killed so ruthlessly, it’s really shocking. It’s quite unexpected.”

Oh Rome – what have you let yourself in for?

It’s stagecraft like this which Jon Tarcy revels in. Just two years out of drama school the Claygate actor is relishing his first season with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). It takes him from Julius Caesar to the lyrical language of the passionate tragedy Antony and Cleopatra to Shakespeare’s rarely performed blood fest Titus Andronicus. The gory tale of revenge sees the slaughter of 14, with amputations, rape and cannibalism thrown into the mix.

David Troughton – farmer Tony Archer in Radio 4’s The Archers – takes the title role. It’s not unusual for productions to be halted so fainting theatre-goers can leave the auditorium.