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Summary
Act 2, Prologue and Scenes 1–5
Prologue
Filippa picks Oliver up from prison. She has visited him every two weeks during his incarceration. She reveals that in the past 10 years, Meredith has become famous, and Alexander is in an avant-garde theatre group. As they drive, they listen to an audiobook of Irish Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea. Hours later, they arrive at Dellecher. An emotional Oliver realizes it was more a cult than a school, one that could justify anything done in the name of art. They meet Colborne at the school and briefly discuss Filippa’s relationship with Camilo. Colborne says he wants to understand what happened to make sense of it. Oliver replies he cannot himself make sense of what happened but begins telling the story.
Act 2, Scene 1
The group takes publicity photographs for Julius Caesar. Alexander tells Oliver he thinks Meredith and Richard broke up following the Halloween “incident,” which continues influencing the group dynamics despite Richard’s brief apology. Oliver notices James playing with Wren’s hair when their picture is taken.
Act 2, Scene 2
After dress rehearsal, James shows Oliver the bruises Richard causes when they practice the assassination scene. James insists Oliver not do anything and plans to win the battle with silence.
Act 2, Scene 3
In the next dress rehearsal, during 2.2, Richard pushes Meredith so violently that she falls down the stairs and cracks her elbow. Oliver moves to defend her but is restrained by Alexander. Gwendolyn stops the rehearsal as Meredith and Richard argue. When she realizes she’s bleeding, Meredith storms away, and Gwendolyn calls for an intermission and demands Richard apologize to Meredith. She warns if he acts out again, she’ll assign Oliver his part. A chastised Richard accuses Meredith of overreacting. When his friends don’t accept his apology, Richard closes the scene by telling Oliver to not start learning his (Richard’s) lines.
Act 2, Scene 4
Meredith propositions Oliver in the dressing room, but despite desiring her, he tells her it’s a bad idea. Oliver says her motives are due only to his availability and aren’t worth risking Richard’s wrath. Meredith’s feelings are hurt.
Act 2, Scene 5
During a jog, James and Oliver discuss the previous evening’s events. Oliver is uncomfortable explaining his complicated feelings for Meredith to James, in part because he knows James doesn’t care for Meredith. Back at the Hall, they see a group of people admiring the Julius Caesar poster of Richard, red and imposing. James warns Oliver to stay away from Meredith both because of Richard and because Meredith propositioned him in their first year. James also predicts that Richard will likely hurt him during the first actual performance of Julius Caesar.
Analysis
Shakespeare’s plays were created during the Elizabethan Era, but their exploration of timeless themes and human passions makes them easy to adapt to other historical moments and contexts. For Dellecher’s 1997 performance of Julius Caesar, the play is presented in the context of a presidential election campaign. The characters are reimagined as candidates wearing contemporary costumes appropriate to political campaigning. Published in 2017, If We Were Villains can also be read as commenting on subsequent contentious presidential campaigns. This choice draws attention to the political implications associated with the play, while reminding readers that it has contemporary, as well as historical, echoes. As the group gathers to have their photographs taken for the publicity materials, the way they are dressed and posed stresses the role of attractiveness on all kinds of stages, personal, political, and dramatic.
Richard’s violent bullying of his peers is the most important development in these chapters. Where his attempt to drown James was public, now the harm he causes his peers is hidden. James’s arms are covered with bruises when he finally shows them to Oliver. Bullying is a genuine social concern and one that can flourish in school environments, but it is not an element of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In the play, Caesar is an egotist, but he is shown to be comparatively weak physically. He is becoming old and seeks to comfort Calpurnia by staying home. Rather than Caesar himself, the justification for Caesar’s murder is provided by other characters. This matters for If We Were Villains because the play itself cannot provide an explanation or excuse for Richard’s behavior. While Shakespeare often adds an important element of analysis to the work, in this important instance it is the contemporary social problem of bullying that complicates the Shakespearean text. Oliver sees the campaign poster, which includes a line from Act I, Scene ii: “Always I am Caesar,” and associates it with surveillance, the kind of omnipresence that amplifies bullying.
These scenes are also noteworthy for their frank representation of female sexual power juxtaposed against male physicality. No longer paired with Richard, Meredith propositions Oliver. In their subsequent exchange, yet another way that bodies and pain can be correlated emerges as she promises him, he does not need to fear being hurt. However, she is the one who ends up hurt, when a confused Oliver lashes out at her. The seeming difference in their sexual experience, as well as Oliver’s insecurity, combine to cause him to dismiss Meredith, as others do, as someone for whom sex is easy or meaningless. Oliver attempts to comfort himself with a line from Romeo and Juliet, although he realizes that it is not actually applicable given the hurt Meredith suffers is actually great.
Across the section, Meredith’s sexuality is associated with danger. When Oliver rebuffs her, he associates the danger with Richard. James, on the other hand, locates the threat with her directly. He compares her to a shark and Oliver to a baby seal, obvious and oblivious prey. Not only is this an echo of various comments that indicate that Oliver fails to see clearly what is evident to others, it also represents female desire as predatory. Later James clarifies that she had previously propositioned him, suggesting that Oliver is only of interest to her because he is present. This assessment does a disservice to both Meredith and Oliver, though it is consistent with the lurking attraction that is present, if unacknowledged, between the men.
