Get Out More.........................Theatre review

CORIOLANUS (Royal Shakespeare Thetare, Stratford)

10-03-2007

It's the final production in the main house of Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it goes dark pending a three- year transformation. So does Coriolanus give a great send-off to a stage populated by the ghosts of theatrical greats? Paula Elenor gives a view from the stalls.

The good news is that even if you find Shakespeare “difficult”, the plot of this play is quite straightforward - quite a rarity in the Bard's canon.

Caius Martius, a member of a distinguished Roman family, reluctantly seeks political office as a Consul. Why would he deserve such an honour? Because, for the third time, he has returned to Rome in triumph after performing monumental feats of valour on the battlefield. His new name, Coriolanus, is given to him after he took the enemy town of Corioles, single-handedly.

But here's the snag - while he's brilliant at the art of warfare, he is completely rubbish at the art of politics!

He simply cannot disguise his utter contempt for the ordinary people of Rome. His withering sarcasm at the expense of the plebeians, when he has to stand in the market place and humbly ask for their “permission” to take on this high office - is amusing, but foolhardy.

The envious tribunes of the people stir up the mob into a murderous frenzy and Coriolanus is banished.

He returns to Rome at the head of a great army of her most deadly enemies, determined to destroy it - regardless of the lives of those all he had loved once.

The mother-son relationship is pivotal to the play. For me, this production fizzed when Janet Suzman as Volumnia and William Houston (Coriolanus) were on the stage together (Suzman returning to the RSC after 31 years). At the end of the day, the great soldier was just a little boy - however much he tried, he could not stand up to his mother's fierce will.

This play is a favourite of mine - why? I love the muscularity of the language: Coriolanus' vitriol, his mother's hectoring and also the urbane wit of Menenius - surely one of Shakespeare's most over-looked character. Timothy West's performance makes much of the character's incisiveness, and also his sense of frustration as he watches Coriolanus make a complete and utter hash of things.

A memorable night in more ways than one - this is the last Shakespearean production to be staged in the main house before work begins on a brand new theatre on the same site. I am not too sorry to see the back of the cramped and inconvenient main house - but at least its last production has gone off with a bang and not a whimper!