“Difference matters”: Challenging myths of Africa-as-country in the RSC’s 2012 Julius Caesar through the legacy of Shakespeare ZA’s #lockdownshakespeare

Abstract

Gregory Doran’s 2012 production of Julius Caesar at the Royal Shakespeare Company set the play in an unspecified time and location in  ‘Africa’. This article will critically compare the generalised African aesthetics of this production with Shakespeare ZA’s 2020  #lockdownshakespeare initiative to explore how self-recording Shakespeare’s plays in the apartments, cars, cities and dwellings of South  Africa can challenge the myth of ‘Africaas-country’. A perceptive framework will be applied to explore how the phenomenal field of these  digital captures of Shakespeare served to de-centre the texts and, moreover, how the experience of viewing these performances brought  new meanings and readings, beyond the familiar, to the execution of the plays in practice. This will be enabled through the application of  the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a re-consideration of Bert States’ view of the interpenetration of images and Susan Bennett’s  theory of frames within Audience Studies. Finally, the legacy of #lockdownshakespeare will be considered in relation to teaching and  practice inspired by this project by the Decentred Shakespeares Network in Brazil, Ghana, India, Scotland and South Africa.