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Coriolanus
Jan. 7th, 2025 08:17 amOn January 2nd, National Theater at Home dropped a new version of Coriolanus starring David Oyelowo, and I decided to give it a go. I’ve never read or watched Coriolanus before, and had only the vaguest idea what it was about: “Sounds like it’s set in ancient Rome? Probably?” So I was worried I might have trouble following it, as I often do with Shakespeare’s English history plays, but I think the English history plays assume a deep familiarity with the Wars of the Roses that Shakespeare’s original audience undoubtedly had and I do not, whereas I probably know as much about ancient Rome as ye average London audience of 1592.
As our story begins, Caius Marcius is an amazing Roman soldier, so amazing in fact that he’s just been granted the name Coriolanus in honor of a recent victory over the Volsci. His friends are clamoring for him to to stand for the consulship.
The problem: Coriolanus is notoriously proud, and even more notoriously loathes the plebeians. To become consul, he must secure the plebeian vote. This involves standing in the market and showing off his battle scars to all comers. With ill grace, he agrees to stand in the marketplace and ask for votes. But he doesn’t show his scars, asks for votes through gritted teeth, and generally gives the impression of considering the whole thing beneath him.
The plebeians give him their vote with reluctance, and afterward grumble that he wasn’t respectful. The tribunes whip up their grievances till the plebeians are ready not only to rescind their vote, but drag Coriolanus out of his house and kill him. (Apparently “the lower orders would be FINE if it weren’t for OUTSIDE AGITATORS” is a tale as old as time.)
The tribunes manage to pull things back to the point that Coriolanus is put on trial instead of murdered out of hand. Coriolanus’s friends beg him to speak gently. Coriolanus accedes with bad grace, barely tries to leash his temper, and after about two questions launches a tirade about how much he hates the common people and their stinking breath and they shouldn’t even have a vote to begin with. As a result, Coriolanus is exiled from Rome.
Intermission!
Part two: The Wrath of Coriolanus. He’s big mad. He’s SO mad that he goes directly to Rome’s enemy the Volsci and offers his services to his hitherto-enemy Aufidius. Let’s conquer Rome! Aufidius cheers that this union with his erstwhile enemy is even better than his marriage day, and the Volsci set out on the warpath.
However, at the gates of Rome, they are met by a series of delegations. First one of Coriolanus’s fellow generals, then his friend Menenius, and last of all his mother Volumnia
Volumnia also brings Coriolanus’s wife and son and some women from Roman, but Volumnia herself is the powerhouse of this scene, and indeed possibly the whole show, dominating even Coriolanus, who became a great soldier at least in part because of her uncompromising demand for soldierly valor. (There’s a scene where she coos dotingly over her grandson’s latest game: capturing butterflies and tearing their wings off.)
The actress is Pamela Nomvete, who is fantastic in all her scenes, but particularly in this one, where she sympathizes with his anger (how DARE the plebes treat her baby boy that way), chides him to display more love of country (leading an army against ROME, though?), and at last kneels down and begs him to spare Rome in a ringing voice that breaks his resolve. We’ve got enough plunder, he tells the Volscians. Let’s go home.
At this point he has such authority in the Volscian army that they do, indeed, spare Rome. But Aufidius is pissed. Coriolanus has stolen his army right out from under him and denied him the sack of Rome while he’s at it! So once they’re back in the Volscian city of Antium, Aufidius charges Coriolanus with treason, reminds his fellow Volscians how many of their fathers and brothers and sons Coriolanus killed before he betrayed Rome, and steps back to watch as the citizens stab Coriolanus to death a la Julius Caesar.
But unlike Caesar, Coriolanus in his pride has built no powerbase, befriended no Marc Antony. His power dies with him.
***
A couple of notes: large parts of this production take place in what appears to be a museum of Roman antiquities. (In the first scene, the hungry plebeians start spray-painting on the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus.) I thought this was an interesting way to foreground the iconography of Rome in what was otherwise a modern-dress production, and because the iconography of Rome remains in many ways the basis of our iconography of state/imperial power, it draws attention to those themes in the production.
I personally felt that the plebeians were right to reject Coriolanus as consul: even if you don’t mind the whole “I hate plebeians and their stinking breath” thing, surely his subsequent actions show he’s not fit! Not sure Shakespeare is on my side on this one, though.
There is apparently a recent Hiddleston production of Coriolanus, which I know because every time I told someone I was watching Coriolanus, they asked, “The one with Tom Hiddleston?” I’d like to watch that one too in order to compare, but I think David Oyelowo was a great first Coriolanus.
As our story begins, Caius Marcius is an amazing Roman soldier, so amazing in fact that he’s just been granted the name Coriolanus in honor of a recent victory over the Volsci. His friends are clamoring for him to to stand for the consulship.
The problem: Coriolanus is notoriously proud, and even more notoriously loathes the plebeians. To become consul, he must secure the plebeian vote. This involves standing in the market and showing off his battle scars to all comers. With ill grace, he agrees to stand in the marketplace and ask for votes. But he doesn’t show his scars, asks for votes through gritted teeth, and generally gives the impression of considering the whole thing beneath him.
The plebeians give him their vote with reluctance, and afterward grumble that he wasn’t respectful. The tribunes whip up their grievances till the plebeians are ready not only to rescind their vote, but drag Coriolanus out of his house and kill him. (Apparently “the lower orders would be FINE if it weren’t for OUTSIDE AGITATORS” is a tale as old as time.)
The tribunes manage to pull things back to the point that Coriolanus is put on trial instead of murdered out of hand. Coriolanus’s friends beg him to speak gently. Coriolanus accedes with bad grace, barely tries to leash his temper, and after about two questions launches a tirade about how much he hates the common people and their stinking breath and they shouldn’t even have a vote to begin with. As a result, Coriolanus is exiled from Rome.
Intermission!
Part two: The Wrath of Coriolanus. He’s big mad. He’s SO mad that he goes directly to Rome’s enemy the Volsci and offers his services to his hitherto-enemy Aufidius. Let’s conquer Rome! Aufidius cheers that this union with his erstwhile enemy is even better than his marriage day, and the Volsci set out on the warpath.
However, at the gates of Rome, they are met by a series of delegations. First one of Coriolanus’s fellow generals, then his friend Menenius, and last of all his mother Volumnia
Volumnia also brings Coriolanus’s wife and son and some women from Roman, but Volumnia herself is the powerhouse of this scene, and indeed possibly the whole show, dominating even Coriolanus, who became a great soldier at least in part because of her uncompromising demand for soldierly valor. (There’s a scene where she coos dotingly over her grandson’s latest game: capturing butterflies and tearing their wings off.)
The actress is Pamela Nomvete, who is fantastic in all her scenes, but particularly in this one, where she sympathizes with his anger (how DARE the plebes treat her baby boy that way), chides him to display more love of country (leading an army against ROME, though?), and at last kneels down and begs him to spare Rome in a ringing voice that breaks his resolve. We’ve got enough plunder, he tells the Volscians. Let’s go home.
At this point he has such authority in the Volscian army that they do, indeed, spare Rome. But Aufidius is pissed. Coriolanus has stolen his army right out from under him and denied him the sack of Rome while he’s at it! So once they’re back in the Volscian city of Antium, Aufidius charges Coriolanus with treason, reminds his fellow Volscians how many of their fathers and brothers and sons Coriolanus killed before he betrayed Rome, and steps back to watch as the citizens stab Coriolanus to death a la Julius Caesar.
But unlike Caesar, Coriolanus in his pride has built no powerbase, befriended no Marc Antony. His power dies with him.
***
A couple of notes: large parts of this production take place in what appears to be a museum of Roman antiquities. (In the first scene, the hungry plebeians start spray-painting on the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus.) I thought this was an interesting way to foreground the iconography of Rome in what was otherwise a modern-dress production, and because the iconography of Rome remains in many ways the basis of our iconography of state/imperial power, it draws attention to those themes in the production.
I personally felt that the plebeians were right to reject Coriolanus as consul: even if you don’t mind the whole “I hate plebeians and their stinking breath” thing, surely his subsequent actions show he’s not fit! Not sure Shakespeare is on my side on this one, though.
There is apparently a recent Hiddleston production of Coriolanus, which I know because every time I told someone I was watching Coriolanus, they asked, “The one with Tom Hiddleston?” I’d like to watch that one too in order to compare, but I think David Oyelowo was a great first Coriolanus.
