Placard-holding protesters bomb an elegant stage with museum-grade artefacts displayed on plinths. They could be anti-war marchers weaving around city monuments, an underclass demonstrating against government austerity, or a rioting mob stirred up by rabble-rousing populists.
Under the direction of Lyndsey Turner, this evocation of Rome, divided by wealth, heritage and war, bears immediate resonances with the present, with its gulf between the angry masses and the city’s impervious elite class.
