Political intrigue, treachery and a struggle for power that will stop at nothing even after a leader is toppled. The setting is not Canberra in recent years but the Ancient Rome of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
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Kenneth Ransom plays the title role in Bell Shakespeare's production, which is on at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre from Friday until October 20.
The African-American actor said it was "great timing" for director James Evans' version, which features a racially diverse cast and several women in what would have traditionally been men's roles.
In this version, the actor playing Caesar doesn't vanish midway through the play apart from a brief appearance as a ghost.
Ransom said the apparition took the place of some of the minor characters, giving Caesar a spectral presence that loomed over the rest of the play.
He described Julius Caesar as "a political thriller" that was very taut in its first half, full of the scheming that led to Caesar's assassination when members of the Senate feared he was gaining too much power.
"The second half is quite different in its shape," he said.
"Things start to unravel."
Not that the issues surrounding the murder were clear-cut, however nobly they might have been intended.
Ransom said, "Caesar was a piece of work."
As well as delving into Roman history, the actor drew on his research into psychopaths for a previous role and said he thought Caesar might have been on that spectrum.
"He was quite unusual in his capacity for cruelty ... and also quite voracious in his sexual appetite," he said.
"There was more reason for them to kill him than the political. He slept with a lot of their wives - he got around."
While that aspect of Caesar was not brought out in the text, Ransom said he was able to use it in his portrayal.
He said, "I can't justify assassination and the play doesn't condone it."
Events overtake the characters and while they might have intended a freer, more democratic society, Ransom said that doing it through an act of violence "started them out on the wrong foot".
But wasn't the United States of America created by a bloody revolution?
"Good point - look at the violence that still continues," he said, saying the US, like Ancient Rome, could be described as an imperial power.
Bell Shakespeare's production of Julius Caesar is on at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre from October 12 to 20 (except Monday, October 15). canberratheatrecentre.com.au.
