What on earth does Canberra have to do with Julius Caesar, some may ask?

A great deal it seems, as I find when I catch up with Caitlin Baker, who’s directing Shakespeare’s “masterpiece of political machinations” for ACT Hub.

This is its first foray into the Bard, although producing company Chaika Theatre is keen to showcase classics by writers such as Schiller and Lorca.

“The story of Caesar seems to be so relevant,” Baker says “Don’t forget we’re living in the nation’s capital.” Or should that be Capitol?

Unusually, Baker is also designing the costumes and it doesn’t sound as if there’ll be too many togas.

“I knew what it looked like in my mind,” she says, “and I asked myself what a Time Magazine cover about Caesar would look like.”

She’s been studying images of Australian MPs and House of Lords politicians, male and female, most of them wearing modern-day business suits, sometimes with pins and other symbolic accessories.

As well, in the play, civil war erupts, suggesting no strict military uniform, so a lot of the costumes will have a touch of informality. But there’ll be scope enough for the conspirators to hide knives to dispatch Caesar with 23 stab wounds.

The old Causeway Hall in Kingston will be transformed into Rome in a show aimed at bringing Julius Caesar “kicking and screaming into the 21st century”.

It’ll all be done on a transverse setting with the audience on either side of a cat walk and the actors appealing to the audience to become a real part of the show.

They count themselves lucky that they could get Lachlan Ruffy, a trained actor with a strong background in Canberra’s theatre scene who has recently returned to town, to play Brutus, “the noblest Roman of them all,” a tragic hero who demonstrates his preparedness to sacrifice his friend for his country.

But Baker also sees some “deeply lovely private moments” such as Act 2, Scene 1, where we see Brutus as a man rather than a political figure, supported by his brave wife Portia, played by Amy Kowalczuk. Immediately after that is a scene where Calpurnia, also played by Kowalczuk, tries to persuade her husband Caesar not to go to the forum – she just wants him to be safe.

There are no goodies or baddies in this play, and Caesar, played by Michael Sparks, is not a fascist villain. After all, he gives his name to the play and you understand why people support him in his ambition for royalty.

Regarding the advertised “gender-blind casting”, where for instance Yanina Clifton plays Cassius and Karen Vickery plays Casca, Baker says she didn’t go looking for any character to be either gender, but that “all the women will be playing their parts as women”.

“When we sat down in rehearsal, some things jumped out of the text, like lovely discoveries that welcome women into the roles, for instance when the female Cassius is described as having a lean and hungry, look or where the text speaks of men in power – that has extra resonance in the mouth of a woman.

“The 21st century really does need this play, but no, it’s not about Donald Trump,” although they’ve looked at imagery of the US protests.

And the end of the play shows that Rome is now united.

“But it’s very tenuous,” Baker says. “It gets you thinking.”

Julius Caesar, ACT Hub, Kingston, July 23-August 2.