Theatre review: Coriolanus (National Theatre)

This year's National Theatre Shakespeare is a fairly rarely-performed one, and one that I'm generally pretty happy to have stay that way; it does though get a big selling point in David Oyelowo making a long-awaited return to the stage to play Coriolanus. Set in the days of the Roman Republic, Oyelowo's Caius Martius is a nobleman and general who earned his titular surname by almost single-handedly sacking the city of Coriolis, stronghold of the enemy Volscians. On his return to Rome, among the honours heaped on him is the expectation that the next stage in his career will be election as Consul, a position of considerable political power. But first he has to gain the support of the public, whose Tribunes Sicinius and Brutus (Stephanie Street and Jordan Metcalfe) are determined to show him up as unsuitable for power.

In fact it doesn't take that much goading for Coriolanus to betray his arrogant belief in his own right to power, and his contempt for the general Roman populace he's meant to be ruling.

One reason Coriolanus isn't among my favourites is that I get bored by its slowly-unfolding machinations, and that might be because there's nobody to root for. Maybe Lyndsey Turner's production feels like a superior one to me because it embraces this nihilistic element, a story taking place within a corrupt and broken system where none of the options are particularly desirable. Oyelowo's Coriolanus is about as sympathetic as the character can plausibly be, and I think it's particularly clear here that he's pushed around by the other nobles into applying for a position he isn't actually interested in. He still believes it's his due though, so at best we're looking at another Prospero/Lear figure, who's got no interest in actually using a position of power to do anything good, but just believes it should be his because of a combination of accident of birth, and military power.

Meanwhile Brutus and Sicinius are undoubtedly shown as grasping chancers, shitstirring largely for their own benefit. But they're not wrong either: Maybe it's because it's not that long since I last saw how this Roman cycle winds up in Antony & Cleopatra, but the Roman Republic is vulnerable to becoming a military dictatorship, it's just not going to happen in this generation. And Coriolanus, whose violent tantrums include him disapproving of the people being helped during a famine, repeatedly demonstrates he doesn't have their interests at heart.

He also of course proves his loyalty to Rome is skin deep when he ends up banished, and his first action is to attack it: He seeks out the man who treated his Coriolanus roughly, his old enemy and Volscian general Tullus Aufidius (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith,) promising to help him lead an army against his home state. Turner's production doesn't really play up the homoeroticism between the two (which is a feat in itself given Tullus all but says Coriolanus joining him makes him harder than his wife ever managed) but plays them as two sides of the same brutal, calculating coin.

Es Devlin's designs are modern in almost everything except the battles, where the actors pick up swords and shields for comparatively bloodless but gruesome fight scenes choreographed by Sam Lyon-Behan. The set design is a modern museum, whose brutalist colums rise and descend to reveal Roman artefacts and props; whether it's making a point about colonialism is unclear (especially given it's Rome itself that's here on the way to becoming the archetypal colonial power,) and may just be a simpler storytelling framework of old statues and weapons coming to life and telling their stories; but the look is striking regardless of the intention.

It's similarly hard to make a direct correlation between the story and modern politics - the open contempt for the public is one thing, but the idea of a Johnson or Trump actually putting himself in direct danger is quite another - but in the wider political class of Rome (including Peter Forbes' Menenius, Sam Hazeldine's Cominius and Jo Stone-Fewings' Titus Lartius) it's easy to see the unquestioned attitude that power should naturally belong to a certain class of people.

Pamela Nomvete brings a steely-eyed no-nonsense quality to Coriolanus' frankly batshit bloodthirsty mother Volumnia, who pretty much despises her daughter-in-law for her weakness - Virgilia's (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) crime is of course openly caring more about whether her husband comes back from the wars alive, than about how much honour he brings the family by killing Volscians. It's fitting that these are the characters who ultimately bring Coriolanus' downfall, by confronting him with the faces of the people, whether Roman or Volscian, he's always found it easy to dismiss as faceless crowds. I found Turner's production made it easy to connect the dots in the story like this, which is probably why it's by far one of the best versions I've seen.

Coriolanus by William Shakespeare is booking until the 9th of November at the National Theatre's Olivier.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Misan Harriman.