Corio-lame-us
I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Coriolanus, since I don't expect to have many opportunities to see it; and, as usual, I read the play in advance. The first time through it was an absolute soporific. I don't think I was exceptionally underslept that week, but it sure seemed like it as I tried to read the play. The second time through, though, was a different matter: I found it engaging, and I was aching to discuss it with someone, to share all of the little discoveries I found in it.
In sum, I thought the play was staged excellently, performed very well indeed, and disappointingly dramatised.
The performance itself was worth the price, which was the most I've ever spent on any performance. I was fortunate, very fortunate indeed, to get a seat in the center of the theatre, because certain sets were four or five elements deep, and not much distance to one side or the other of center was required for parallax to obscure what was going on in the back of the set. The best way I can describe it is to say it used concentric doorways, five across and five deep, to create the illusion of collonades and passageways. It was the civic spaces of Rome that got this set, which was a fair amount of the play. But, sitting where I was, man, it was cool. Early on, several patricians came marching downstage through the center passage of the set, and the alternating light and shadow as they passed between the elements of the set was like something I've seen in the movies, although I don't remember which: I want, though, to say Star Wars, when Darth Vader first came marching onto the scene, or Blade Runner. The other sets weren't so impressive, but they were suited very well to their scenes. Except during the siege of Corioli, the upper half, or even two-thirds, of the stageable space was unused, and the sets were basically flat and featureless. But the scene wherein the women went into the field to beg that Rome be spared, they used the entire stage, with no set at all.
The costumes were an admirable blend of Roman and Tudor styles: they would seem like either and both, depending upon how you tried to see them. Patricians and plebeians both wore costumes that seemed like this, the difference between them lying in the quality of the fabric and the colors. The Roman soldiers had Tudor tunics and combination Roman "skirt"/Tudor bloomer pantalettes. The women's clothes were more Roman than Tudor, though: long, straight, and toga-like.
The dramatis personæ were very well played. Menenius was as jolly as a patrician could be; Volumnia was dominating without being domineering; Valeria reminded me of Joanna Lumley's Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, which was a bit of a surprise, because I had read her more as Virgilia's friend than Volumnia's; and Caius Martius Coriolanus was smart-ass-y in town but almost feral in battle. I have to say, though, that William Houston, who played Coriolanus, is one weird-lookin' dude. The playbill cover has him with thick, full wavy hair to his earlobes, which makes him look even weirder; but in the show, he had short hair. Mainly it was his very-broad mouth that I remarked, and his wide stance. I wonder if he rides a lot of horses, because he seemed a bit bowlegged, too. And in the battle scenes he would hunch forward, which again just seemed kind of weird.
But it's also in the role-playing that my dissatisfaction with this dramatisation also began to find substance. Certain parts were played for laughs that shouldn't be funny, or are funny but not comically so, which is how the humor was usually played. And my biggest beef of all – which, frankly, is gigantic with respect to the exegesis and context of the play – is with the differing portrayals of patricians and plebeians: the former as dignified, the latter as buffoons (the tribunes were somewhere in between: mostly dignified, but making some mistakes of protocol to emphasize their lack of belonging when among patricians).
What particularly struck me was the utter absence of any reference to the current political circumstances in the U.S.: a would-be king of such self-confidence that he'll make tragic mistakes rather than show humility, who tolerates the people because he must rather than because they are due any respect whatsoever; and a political élite who would, without any qualms, lie and manipulate to get their way because they think they're entitled to it. Nope: none of that. In fact, there was not even any evident recognition that the latter were at all part of the circumstances of the play. But more of that in a moment.
For some reason – I've never seen such a thing before – the playbill includes a production history of the play. Here are the most interesting bits:
In sum, I thought the play was staged excellently, performed very well indeed, and disappointingly dramatised.
The performance itself was worth the price, which was the most I've ever spent on any performance. I was fortunate, very fortunate indeed, to get a seat in the center of the theatre, because certain sets were four or five elements deep, and not much distance to one side or the other of center was required for parallax to obscure what was going on in the back of the set. The best way I can describe it is to say it used concentric doorways, five across and five deep, to create the illusion of collonades and passageways. It was the civic spaces of Rome that got this set, which was a fair amount of the play. But, sitting where I was, man, it was cool. Early on, several patricians came marching downstage through the center passage of the set, and the alternating light and shadow as they passed between the elements of the set was like something I've seen in the movies, although I don't remember which: I want, though, to say Star Wars, when Darth Vader first came marching onto the scene, or Blade Runner. The other sets weren't so impressive, but they were suited very well to their scenes. Except during the siege of Corioli, the upper half, or even two-thirds, of the stageable space was unused, and the sets were basically flat and featureless. But the scene wherein the women went into the field to beg that Rome be spared, they used the entire stage, with no set at all.
The costumes were an admirable blend of Roman and Tudor styles: they would seem like either and both, depending upon how you tried to see them. Patricians and plebeians both wore costumes that seemed like this, the difference between them lying in the quality of the fabric and the colors. The Roman soldiers had Tudor tunics and combination Roman "skirt"/Tudor bloomer pantalettes. The women's clothes were more Roman than Tudor, though: long, straight, and toga-like.
The dramatis personæ were very well played. Menenius was as jolly as a patrician could be; Volumnia was dominating without being domineering; Valeria reminded me of Joanna Lumley's Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, which was a bit of a surprise, because I had read her more as Virgilia's friend than Volumnia's; and Caius Martius Coriolanus was smart-ass-y in town but almost feral in battle. I have to say, though, that William Houston, who played Coriolanus, is one weird-lookin' dude. The playbill cover has him with thick, full wavy hair to his earlobes, which makes him look even weirder; but in the show, he had short hair. Mainly it was his very-broad mouth that I remarked, and his wide stance. I wonder if he rides a lot of horses, because he seemed a bit bowlegged, too. And in the battle scenes he would hunch forward, which again just seemed kind of weird.
But it's also in the role-playing that my dissatisfaction with this dramatisation also began to find substance. Certain parts were played for laughs that shouldn't be funny, or are funny but not comically so, which is how the humor was usually played. And my biggest beef of all – which, frankly, is gigantic with respect to the exegesis and context of the play – is with the differing portrayals of patricians and plebeians: the former as dignified, the latter as buffoons (the tribunes were somewhere in between: mostly dignified, but making some mistakes of protocol to emphasize their lack of belonging when among patricians).
What particularly struck me was the utter absence of any reference to the current political circumstances in the U.S.: a would-be king of such self-confidence that he'll make tragic mistakes rather than show humility, who tolerates the people because he must rather than because they are due any respect whatsoever; and a political élite who would, without any qualms, lie and manipulate to get their way because they think they're entitled to it. Nope: none of that. In fact, there was not even any evident recognition that the latter were at all part of the circumstances of the play. But more of that in a moment.
For some reason – I've never seen such a thing before – the playbill includes a production history of the play. Here are the most interesting bits:
Freud was also drawn on later to suggest a homosexual attraction between Martius and Aufidius in Tyrome Guthrie's production of 1963 with John Neville and Ian McKellen [a suggestion made also in this production; perfidious Martius kissed Aufidius quite hard]; and his theory of narcissism seems to have been an element in the eerily self-worshipping, black leather machismo of Alan Howard in the RSC production of 1977.
...
Transferring the play to other historical periods has also been experimented with. One of the cleverist mmodern-dress versions was John Hirsch's 1989 production at San Diego, which updated the Volscian war to the U.S. campaign against the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, with Coriolanus identified with Colonel Oliver North, Volumnia and Virgilia with Rose and Ethel Kennedy, Menenius as a white-suited Southern senator, and Aufidius as a Castro look-alike. The play's concern with falsifications of public image was brilliantly modernized by having action televised by on-stage camera crews, with their takes appearing simultaneously on banks of television screens to each side of the proscenium, interspersed with commercials and patriotic music. Hilariously, but appropriately, both Republicans and Democrats considered that the production supported their cause in that year's crucial election. [Um...1989? Which "crucial election" was that?]
Finally, in recent years Coriolanus has been "deconstructed," with shock tactic emphases on theatricalism and eclectic visual effects. ... Such spin-offs mus be considered as experiments in "scenography," not as versions of Shakespeare; but one production of major importance did incorporate their style. At the National Theatre in 1984, Peter Hall's production protesting the Falklands war mixed Roman and contemporary costumes, and the audience on bleachers to each side of its sandpit stage were co-opted into the Roman and Volscian mobs.
Coriolanus has been called "the least dated of Shakespeare's plays," but, ominously, it is revived most often in periods of social unrest.
I fear that this production does not merit inclusion in any future summary of the play's production history: it was well-acted and very well-staged, but it was dramatised quite ordinarily; and for this play, I see nothing complimentary about that.
In fact, this production uncritically accepted what I call the "standard interpretation" of the play, which actually wants a great deal of criticism. Whatever the Modern Language Association may have become, for ages literary criticism was élitist and literary critics tended to be social and political conservatives: perhaps friendly to the abstract ideals of republican democracy, but certainly not to its practical extension among the hoi polloi [and, yes, I know that's like saying "the Christ" or "con carne with meat," but hoi polloi functions as a two-word noun in English].
Briefly, this is the "standard interpretation;" you may find it in virtually any introduction to the play. The plebeians are governed more by their hearts and bellies than by their heads, whereas the opposite obtains for the patricians. (As Mayor "Diamond Joe" Quimby has put it: "I'm sick o' you people! You're nothing but a pack of fickle mush-heads!" or "Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?") Politically, the plebeians are allowed no will of their own, or at least none worth the patricians' attention. The patricians, on the other hand, look out for the plebeians in looking out for the best interests of Rome (note particularly how Menenius, who shares many of Coriolanus' opinions of the plebeians, is written and [in this case] played as a kindly old man, despite the fact that he tells Coriolanus to lie to the people so he can become Consul, at which time he could break his promises with impunity). It is the people's tribunes, rather, who are portrayed as the self-interested manipulators of the political process, who play for fools the people who chose them, and who cause everyone to suffer because of it. Even where (as in the Cliffs Notes to the play) it is conceded that the people have a point, at least initially, the tribunes are nonetheless the ones identified as personally unlikeable, as untrustworthy, and as manipulative.
Lest you doubt this interpretation, during intermission I overheard numerous comments to this effect.
And yet: the plebeians always give the patricians the benefit of the doubt. The patricians never give a straight answer; when asked why they let the plebeians starve, they offer non-denial denials: 'why would we do that?' They laugh about the plebeians thinking they're flush with grain, but do they offer to show their empty granaries (as they must be if the patricians are honest)? The patricians fling personal rather than situational insults upon the plebeians; they plot to be nice only when they want something from the plebeians and then go back to being their everyday jerk-ass selves; they insist upon having their way because they've always had their way; when the plebeians want a voice in government, the patricians refuse to participate in government at all, and then blame the plebeians when things go to hell. And yet, when the patricians insist upon having the most jerk-ass-y patrician of all as the leader of Rome – solely as a reward for victory in battle, not for anything even remotely indicative of political competency – the plebeians are willing to accede if only he'll ask their approval politely. I ask you: which class has the greater nobility of character?
So the patricians have to start sharing governance with a few plebeians; then they try to foist an asshole soldier upon them as Consul; the plebeians object because the Consul-to-be treats plebeians worse than animals [the play essentially begins with a patrician telling the plebeians that the patricians look out for the plebeians]; the patricians tell Coriolanus to suck it up until he's Consul, when he can go back to being an asshole; but he refuses to fake nice – polite! that's all he has to be, for a couple of hours! –, so the plebeians refuse their assent; then the would-be Consul tells the plebeians just how he's going to fuck them over when he becomes Consul, so the plebeians throw him out of town; so the would-be Consul joins Rome's enemy in a fit of pique and nearly sacks the city: and somehow the plebeians and their tribunes are responsible?! The patricians are spoiled brats. Even supposing they deserve what they already have, that in no way means they are owed what they want; but that's exactly how they act. How in heaven's name could anyone in good conscience even sympathise with, let alone defend, them?
But that's what happens. That's the attitude inspired by even an "ordinary" production such as this one, to judge from overheard comments, or from that fact that some dumbshit copywriter thinks it's 'hilariously appropriate' for both Republicans and Democrats to think the play is sympathetic to their constituencies. I know the actors memorized their parts, and surely the director must have read the whole play at least once: but I have to wonder, did – does – anyone actually think about it? Certainly there must be at least some subconscious awareness that the underlying circumstances of the play belie the assymetries in the relative verbal abilities of patricians and plebeians, or everyone would be wondering why Democrats would like the play at all. But doesn't that inspire any curiosity in anyone?
So this play's lit-crit corpus needs some serious rehabilitation. I hope that current scholarship does as much. Although for the life of me, I can't understand how anyone could miss it. I mean, great god almighty, people: it's staring you in the fucking face. I'm no literary genius, but even I was able to figure it out.
And then, as I say, there was an excellent opportunity here in the convergence of current politics and the play, but for whatever reason – I dunno; maybe some bullshit consideration of "artistic purity"? – they let it go altogether. Menenius as Cheney...that would have been so damned funny...funnier than any of the humor they actually employed. What a loss.
P.S. Huh. It seems that "dumbshit copywriter" is an emeritus professor of English and the editor of a famous-publisher edition of the play. Which seems to prove my point about the "standard interpretation" and dullwitted scholarship.
In fact, this production uncritically accepted what I call the "standard interpretation" of the play, which actually wants a great deal of criticism. Whatever the Modern Language Association may have become, for ages literary criticism was élitist and literary critics tended to be social and political conservatives: perhaps friendly to the abstract ideals of republican democracy, but certainly not to its practical extension among the hoi polloi [and, yes, I know that's like saying "the Christ" or "con carne with meat," but hoi polloi functions as a two-word noun in English].
Briefly, this is the "standard interpretation;" you may find it in virtually any introduction to the play. The plebeians are governed more by their hearts and bellies than by their heads, whereas the opposite obtains for the patricians. (As Mayor "Diamond Joe" Quimby has put it: "I'm sick o' you people! You're nothing but a pack of fickle mush-heads!" or "Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?") Politically, the plebeians are allowed no will of their own, or at least none worth the patricians' attention. The patricians, on the other hand, look out for the plebeians in looking out for the best interests of Rome (note particularly how Menenius, who shares many of Coriolanus' opinions of the plebeians, is written and [in this case] played as a kindly old man, despite the fact that he tells Coriolanus to lie to the people so he can become Consul, at which time he could break his promises with impunity). It is the people's tribunes, rather, who are portrayed as the self-interested manipulators of the political process, who play for fools the people who chose them, and who cause everyone to suffer because of it. Even where (as in the Cliffs Notes to the play) it is conceded that the people have a point, at least initially, the tribunes are nonetheless the ones identified as personally unlikeable, as untrustworthy, and as manipulative.
Lest you doubt this interpretation, during intermission I overheard numerous comments to this effect.
And yet: the plebeians always give the patricians the benefit of the doubt. The patricians never give a straight answer; when asked why they let the plebeians starve, they offer non-denial denials: 'why would we do that?' They laugh about the plebeians thinking they're flush with grain, but do they offer to show their empty granaries (as they must be if the patricians are honest)? The patricians fling personal rather than situational insults upon the plebeians; they plot to be nice only when they want something from the plebeians and then go back to being their everyday jerk-ass selves; they insist upon having their way because they've always had their way; when the plebeians want a voice in government, the patricians refuse to participate in government at all, and then blame the plebeians when things go to hell. And yet, when the patricians insist upon having the most jerk-ass-y patrician of all as the leader of Rome – solely as a reward for victory in battle, not for anything even remotely indicative of political competency – the plebeians are willing to accede if only he'll ask their approval politely. I ask you: which class has the greater nobility of character?
So the patricians have to start sharing governance with a few plebeians; then they try to foist an asshole soldier upon them as Consul; the plebeians object because the Consul-to-be treats plebeians worse than animals [the play essentially begins with a patrician telling the plebeians that the patricians look out for the plebeians]; the patricians tell Coriolanus to suck it up until he's Consul, when he can go back to being an asshole; but he refuses to fake nice – polite! that's all he has to be, for a couple of hours! –, so the plebeians refuse their assent; then the would-be Consul tells the plebeians just how he's going to fuck them over when he becomes Consul, so the plebeians throw him out of town; so the would-be Consul joins Rome's enemy in a fit of pique and nearly sacks the city: and somehow the plebeians and their tribunes are responsible?! The patricians are spoiled brats. Even supposing they deserve what they already have, that in no way means they are owed what they want; but that's exactly how they act. How in heaven's name could anyone in good conscience even sympathise with, let alone defend, them?
But that's what happens. That's the attitude inspired by even an "ordinary" production such as this one, to judge from overheard comments, or from that fact that some dumbshit copywriter thinks it's 'hilariously appropriate' for both Republicans and Democrats to think the play is sympathetic to their constituencies. I know the actors memorized their parts, and surely the director must have read the whole play at least once: but I have to wonder, did – does – anyone actually think about it? Certainly there must be at least some subconscious awareness that the underlying circumstances of the play belie the assymetries in the relative verbal abilities of patricians and plebeians, or everyone would be wondering why Democrats would like the play at all. But doesn't that inspire any curiosity in anyone?
So this play's lit-crit corpus needs some serious rehabilitation. I hope that current scholarship does as much. Although for the life of me, I can't understand how anyone could miss it. I mean, great god almighty, people: it's staring you in the fucking face. I'm no literary genius, but even I was able to figure it out.
And then, as I say, there was an excellent opportunity here in the convergence of current politics and the play, but for whatever reason – I dunno; maybe some bullshit consideration of "artistic purity"? – they let it go altogether. Menenius as Cheney...that would have been so damned funny...funnier than any of the humor they actually employed. What a loss.
P.S. Huh. It seems that "dumbshit copywriter" is an emeritus professor of English and the editor of a famous-publisher edition of the play. Which seems to prove my point about the "standard interpretation" and dullwitted scholarship.
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 20:59
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home