Ecology and Shakespeare: Ecocriticism and Political Implication in Caesar’s Maze

Ecocriticism, a theoretical movement examining cultural constructions of Nature in their social and political contexts, is gradually making an influential contribution to our understanding of Shakespeare’s canons or masterpieces. Shakespeare’s plays contain ecologies of time and change, using the metaphors of nature connected with the destiny of human beings, animals, and non-humans. In As You Like It, nature in the forest of Arden functions as the healing paradise for the good Duke Senior in exile to find leisure and pleasure, and both Rosalind and Celia find love and safety. In King Lear, the storm in the wilderness is the natural background for King Lear to get mad at his two bad daughters, Goneril and Regan’s nonfilial piety. In The Tempest, the natural island where Prospero casts magic to let Ariel punish Alonso, who usurped Prospero’s throne, is full of ecologies. Natural philosophy in Shakespeare’s plays works well as the causes for human justice, as Mark A. McDonald claims. Or “ecophobia,” as Simon C. Estok says, to conceptualize the Other in The Tempest, Henry V, and The Merchant of Venice. Not only ecologies of time and change use nature as a symbol but also deploy animals’ unstable characteristics as similes and analogies and the permeability of the animal-human boundary are vividly depicted in Shakespeare’s plays. Animals’ physical attributes are employed for Shakespeare to compare his characters’ personalities of Falstaff and Macbeth to cats and bears. In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio’s taming his wife Katherine is like taming a horse or a hawk. Ecology can also be detected in Asian performance in Taiwan. Contemporary Legend Theatre’s (CLT) new production Caesar’s Maze (June 14–16, 2024, Taipei: National Theater) is adapted from Shakespeare’s history play and tragedy Julius Caesar, first performed in 1599. The two main actors are CLT Artistic Director Wu, Hsing-Kuo, who sings Chinese Beijing Opera, and Zhang Jun (President of Shanghai Chinese Opera School affiliated with Shanghai Theatre Academy), who sings Kunqu Opera. Based on Shakespeare’s historical tragedy Julius Caesar, Beatrice Lei does the adaptation script translation from English into Chinese and modern English. Lei’s translation script bilingual subtitles are concise to match the stage screen projection size. The ecocriticism of Julius Caesar conforms to the “principles of ecology to maintain a balanced eco-human relationship or else, chaos and disorder would reign and ruin all” (Biswas and Adhikari 2008: 15). Thus, by ecocriticism I argue that in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, human being’s destiny is interconnected with nature and CLT’s new production artistic collaboration between Wu and Zhang breaks the disputes of national identity, political conflicts, and China’s military threat toward Taiwan. The artists try to sing for harmony by fusing Chinese Beijing Opera and Kunqu Opera aided by technology in set design and stage design. This new transnational Asian performance of Caesar’s Maze with political implications remakes Shakespeare as a global intellectual property for change to achieve eco-human balance and peace. This chapter connects ecologies and Shakespearean research. This play applies ecocritical study to explore the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s (CLT) new production Caesar’s Maze. To maintain a balanced eco-human relationship, Julius Caesar conforms to the principles of ecology or else chaos and disorder would reign and ruin all. Ecological natural philosophy can be manifested in Shakespeare’s plays containing natural causes for human justice.