I have seen productions of Julius Caesar that set it in a modern, Western context and it just looks as though they're getting rid of a particularly cantankerous chairman of the board rather than the great leader of the world.

I always feel emotionally engaged in productions. If I ever get to the point where I don't feel emotionally engaged, maybe I should stop. You have to make each play an event. Whether that's star leading actors or the concept behind the production.

The list of potential candidates for Julius Caesar is quite large. You could go, Well, he's a Caesar. Idi Amin, or Bokassa in the Central African Empire, or in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe coming to power. They have all, at some point in their lives, been candidates for a casting as Julius Caesar.

There's a wonderful author named Can Themba, who said that Africa extends a fraternal handshake to Shakespeare. That William Shakespeare would have recognized Elizabethan England more readily in Africa today than in England today.