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Coriolanus (Stratford Festival) (archival recording)
There’s a near-perfect alignment between form and content in Barry Avrich’s film of Robert LePage’s Coriolanus, originally directed for the Stratford Festival, Ontario in 2018 and now broadcast live internationally via Stratfest@Home. Perhaps almost too perfect. LePage’s Coriolanus is fully committed to its formal conceit, even at the expense of rendering the production almost entirely two-dimensional – which at times just…
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Coriolanus (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, via RSC Live
Much was made in the pre-show paratexts for the RSC’s live broadcast of Coriolanus of the play’s contemporaneity, and at the same time the general nature of that contemporaneity. Coriolanus, as Haydn Gwynne suggested, is a play that always feels contemporary. In fact, this was one of the least specifically resonant Coriolani(?) I’ve seen for some time. Set in a very near future,…
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Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre
I last saw Roman Tragedies eight years ago, when I was a teeny and energetic PhD student for whom theatrical marathons were par for the course. The production was, at the time, one of the biggest influences on my understanding of theatre; it remains on my mental list of my top five Shakespeare productions, and I was…
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Coriolanus @ The Donmar Warehouse, via NT Live
The Hiddleston effect is a very tangible thing. As the stalwart Emma Freud reminded international audiences in what was, frankly, the most banal interval interview NT Live has yet managed (which is saying something), Tom Hiddleston was recently voted Sexiest Man Alive by MTV, and his Coriolanus attracted the youngest audience I’ve yet seen to an NT Live Shakespeare…
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Coriolanus: The Shooting Script by John Logan (Harper Collins)
I’ve just been sent a copy of Coriolanus: The Shooting Script by the good folks at Harper Collins. This is part of an ongoing series of carefully packaged and attractive scripts, offering the film text along with insights from the filmmakers, and it’s a fascinating read after seeing the film. John Logan’s introduction offers a fascinating insight into the…
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Coriolanus (film)
The best thing about the poster for Ralph Fiennes’s new film of Coriolanus (and his directorial debut) is the contrast between the streams of red blood and those ice-cold eyes. In a single image we see the entire film – a steady, chilling gaze framed by horrific images and the messy reality of war. For those of us who…
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Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre
A six hour version of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra stitched together. With no interval. In promenade. In Dutch with surtitles. It’s been a while since I’ve subjected myself to a Shakespearean endurance test (The Histories), and this was the kind of hardcore event which doesn’t come around very often. Happily, Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s first visit to the UK…
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Coriolanus (Ninagawa Company) @ The Barbican Theatre
I’d never been to the Barbican before Friday night, and I have to say I was incredibly impressed. It’s enormous and beautiful and very much the kind of venue that gets me excited about theatre, life and all the possibility there is. Needless to say I picked up several events guides and am already looking…
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Coriolanus (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
This is the final play in Shakespeare’s canon that I had never seen a production of (well, unless you count ‘Edward III’- and I’ve still only seen ‘The Merchant Of Venice’ on film), meaning that it’s the final chance I had to come to a production completely fresh, knowing little more than the basic outline of…
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Dr Peter Kirwan 