Coriolanus

by William Shakespeare

filmed live performance from the Donmar Warehouse seen on 24 September 2015

This production from the Donmar's 2014 season was directed by Josie Rourke and designed by Lucy Osborne. It starred Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus, Deborah Findlay as Volumnia, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Virgilia, Mark Gatiss as Menenius, Hadley Fraser as Aufidius. Elliot Levey as the tribune Brutus and Helen Schlesinger as the (feminised) tribune Sicinia.

The Donamr stage was stripped back to its bare back wall, painted red to chest height with various graffiti painted or projected onto it to emphasise the political background to much of the action. A single ladder stretched upwards, used in the siege of Corioli; chairs were brought from the back when needed, or otherwise left unobtrusively for actors to sit on when they were not needed for certain scenes. The outline of a rectangle was painted in red by Coriolanus's son at the beginning, and was used to indicate the confines of a house when required; later a small black square was painted within it, used to constrain Coriolanus himself when he is put on trial for treason. All in all, the atmosphere was oppressive and threatening, an apt background for both the political demagoguery and the military struggles depicted in the play.

Tom Hiddleston gave us a strong self-assured Coriolanus whose fatal aristocratic arrogance emanates precisely from his upbringing and his own personal success as a military leader. What seems straightforward to a military man - plain speech, impatience with uncongenial tradition and undisciplined civilians - is soon shown to be disastrous political ineptitude. Anger and rage cause him to turn on Rome and it is only at the last moment, when he capitulates to his mother's entreaties, that he seems truly aware of the trap into which he has fallen. The charismatic leadership, the mood swings, the fraught mother/son relationship, were all brilliantly portrayed, with powerful verse speaking and a great stage presence.

Surrounding him were an excellent cast - the tribunes baiting him with self-satisfied smirks, the soldiers enthusiastic and the plebeians wanting to be so, but frustrated when Coriolanus fails to play to their expectations, his wife and friends distraught by the turn of events, and his mother implacable at first in her almost cloying support, and at last in her crucial appeal to dissuade him from revenge. Deborah Findlay showed us in Volumnia where Coriolanus learnt his sense of superiority and entitlement, and also where he met his match in stubbornness; their confrontations were always fascinating to watch.