Fame Meets Fortune in The Public Theatre's CORIOLANUS
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| Jonathan Cake as Coriolanus. Photo: Joan Marcus |
Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare's last plays, and his last bonafide tragedy, is a rarely produced gem about a Roman General who understands how to win a battlefield...but not the ballot box.
Most recently, audiences may have seen the Ralph Fiennes' helmed-and-directed film, or the NT filmed version of the Donmar Warehouse's production, directed by Josie Rourke with Tom Hiddleston in the title role. The last production by the Public Theatre was 40 years ago in 1979 with Morgan Freeman as the furious general. However, this production boasts a leading man, Jonathan Cake, who has already played the role a dozen years ago at Shakespeare's Globe in London.
It's a delight, therefore, to see a live staged version on a grand scale at the Delacourt, where Roman citizens can be staged en mass with a full ensemble, rather than two or three actors doubling a million other roles. Daniel Sullivan is blessed to have his post-apocalyptic vision upheld by impressive scene design with a Les Mis-barricade inspired edge by Beowulf Boritt, and supporting thrumming music by composer Dan Moses Schreier and sound designer Jessica Paz.
The plot which is roughly: warrior wins country, warrior loses country, warrior defects to his enemies and is ruthlessly murdered, can often prove confusing in performance. While the text is less dense than, say, Troilus and Cressida, the plot requires some hand-holding to bring the audience through the politicking of early Rome. Fortunately, Sullivan is aided here as well by a talented cast of actors who make their lines clear, including the various machinations to work upon Coriolanus' seeming pride to bring him down in the estimation of the Republic.
I must admit, the first two times I encountered the play: first in 2000 in London with Ralph Fiennes' live production, and then again playing the tribune, Junius Brutus in 2016 in New York City - I had difficulty fully grasping every nuance of the text. The major movements were always there: Coriolanus' victory over the barbarians, his contentious relationship with his domineering mother, his embarrassment in begging for votes from the Republic, his defecting to his enemy, his relenting of the sack of Rome when his mother came to beg him, his death at the hands of the Volscian army.
However, with so much textual reference to Coriolanus' rage, many productions encourage their leading man to merely yell his way through a production, that much can be lost. Jonathan Cake brings another flavor to his Roman general. Most potent are not Coriolanus' bursts of rage (although those exist), but rather what comes to the forefront is the general's abject awkwardness in anything but battle. He is the jock pained by the ESPN dog and pony show in the aftermath. It's not so much that Cake's Coriolanus hates the people of Rome as he just wants to be left alone to do his job.
The cost of success, the price of fame, is beautifully, amusingly, and painfully observed in Cake's depiction. He brings a real vulnerability to the aftermath of the battle, where all he can think of is single word answers, revolving around his very real wounds. Where everyone wants from him, instead of just allowing his work - his successes - to stand for themselves. And then again in the scene where he must ask for the people's vote, we see the power that the common man wields over those who would lead us. It is not enough that Coriolanus is capable: his very real abilities mean nothing unless he can sell it with a bit of panache to the people.
This is compounded, of course, with his complicated relationship with his mother, Voluminia (Kate Burton). The actors don't shy away from the effects of Voluminia's covert emotional incest/narcissistic parentification with her son, which both spurs the general on to great feats, while also making him incapable of emotionally connecting with either his own family or his town. In fact, Coriolanus' only friendship is with his rival, Aufidius (Louis Cancelmi) - another relationship born out of rancor.
I very much applaud Cake's approach to the role, which spools out beautifully in the first half of the play. Unfortunately, what I was missing was the warrior. Cake's physicality is rather springy, and he was left to wander the stage rather than hold his ground: both habits which might have been examined in rehearsal with the director. Similarly, while Cake's interpretation of Coriolanus is upheld by the text in the first three acts, it's less textually evident in acts four and five (post intermission). However, Sullivan did nothing to help pull out Cake's approach to the play in those last acts, with the resulting sensation that the second half of the play was simply over.
Sullivan also missed several opportunities for dynamic stage pictures - most notably in the scene where Voluminia begs for mercy on behalf of Rome. I remember watching the London production with Ralph Fiennes which was played in aching stillness: both actors facing us, the actress letting every line crystalize and fall up on her son's ear, while he fought, silently, against his urge to be Mama's soldier boy. When, after so much silence, Fiennes' Coriolanus agonizingly reached back his hand to take his mother's outstretched arm, the pain of that defeat was palpable. A friend who saw the Hiddleston/Rourke production said similar still staging was used for that same scene. However, Sullivan has his Coriolanus and Voluminia wandering the stage on an angle, sometimes even facing away from us, so that the power and importance of the scene is lost.
The stage pictures are also inconsistent. In some places, such as one of Coriolanus' soliloquies, Sullivan employs dramatic staging with lights and sound to bring us into the title character's thoughts (and possibly to make Cake's delivery a bit more exciting, since he fumbles a bit with soliloquy more than scene). However, this technique is not employed with any consistency - such as when it might have been helpful in the final scenes when the general is narrating his feelings at his mother's entrance and the audience is left to wonder if his mother can hear him.
These quibbles aside, the Public's Coriolanus is a solid production with several notable performances. Teagle F. Bougere owns every moment he's on the stage as Menenius, one of Coriolanus' supporters, who takes the role usually played by the wise fool. His first appearance tackled incredibly difficult text with ease, humor and understanding. It's little wonder he's a frequent company member with the Public, and long may he remain so! Similarly, Amelia Workman as the minor role Valeria, friend of Coriolanus' wife, showed such grace and command of the language and the stage, that I was only incensed she wasn't playing a larger role.
Kate Burton as Voluminia is an excellent scene partner for Cake. By turns petulant and praising, fully leaning into a woman who wishes she were the warrior herself. Louis Cancelmi as Aufidius shines in his scenes with Cake as well, although the homoerotic subtext is never settled on in the production - leaving some confusing as to their exact storyline, and Aufidius' final destruction of Coriolanus. Jonathan Hadary as as Sicinius Veletus and Enid Graham as Junius Brutus are perfectly cast, brilliantly evoking politicians who can make a Hamptons even out of a hellmouth.
With a play about warring nations, there is some wish that the costuming between the Romans and the Volscians were more distinct than Mad Maxx standard issue garb. And with such a beautiful, rotating set, there's some wish that the use of the barricade into distinct locations were a bit more consistent, but these are minor quibbles.
Ultimately, for those looking for a solid, and mostly clear introduction to Shakespeare's final tragedy, they would do well to snag a ticket to the Public's Coriolanus. Recommended.
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