As the Donmar’s 2014 production of Coriolanus goes NT:Live on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel tonight, for seven days, I thought I would repost my review from February of that year:
AS WRITTEN IN 2014:
I saw Coriolanus, on Thursday evening, thanks to the technical wizardry of N.T. Live. Although I don’t think ‘live’ carries the impact of the actual live performance – in that the Donmar is a tiny space and this production is bitingly, shockingly, visceral – thus the impact is somewhat diluted if you’re not in that small performance space; I was thrilled I had a chance to see it at all. Tickets for the entire run (at the actual theatre) apparently sold out in the first twenty four hours of going on sale, thanks in no small part to the glory that is Tom Hiddleston. So, it was NT:Live, or nothing – the choice was simple.
Both Tom Hiddleston and Deborah Findlay are fantastic. Words penned centuries ago by Shakespeare are spoken with ease and, completely naturally, by both. Their line delivery, as that of Mark Gatiss, is a thing of beauty and their performances eclipse those of the supporting cast who pale by comparison.
A lifetime ago I knew this playtext like the back of my hand. I wrote essay upon essay on this play, about the main character, his mother, usurpation and betrayal. Most of what I learnt has long since faded from memory. And so I entered the cinema with few preconceptions. I did have a vague idea/recollection that the play would end as it does, but my memory of events and of the unfolding tragedy were lost to time. So, I came to the text – to the performance – fresh.
In my opinion Tom Hiddleston’s earlier Shakespeare work informs, imbues and enriches this performance. Here I think of his Henry, once he leaves his youthful-Harry-self behind and bestrides the play that is Henry V. That he was cast as a warrior patrician here doesn’t surprise, given his other roles playing Princes and Kings. Action sci-fi films have also, possibly, improved his fight skills and honed his body. Was his casting a creative or a business decision by Josie O’Rourke and The Donmar?
It may interest the curious to know fans have been sleeping on frozen, rain-drenched pavements in the hope of scoring day returns; Hiddleston being this generation’s Beatle demi-god. Not that there isn’t good cause. Leaving aside his charisma and blindingly good looks (for just a teensy-tiny moment) he is a truly talented actor and, like a great many of his RADA contemporaries, a very physical one. There isn’t a moment where his performance doesn’t feel three dimensional – for all that it was beamed across town, country and continent – despite the two dimensions of recorded live theatre. Hiddleston inhabits the space extraordinarily well. He is more alive and omnipresent, somehow, than most of the cast with whom he shares the stage.
Exceptions (i.e. those members in the cast who fully match his performance) are in no apparent order: Mark Gatiss who was gloriously wonderful and Deborah Findlay who bestrides both stage and play. In terms of the support cast both Hadley Fraser and Mark Stanley impress. But it’s the other three actors who shine.
Gatiss is a true delight to watch, his Menenius informed by his Mycroft. But there is a depth and a complexity, as well as a sensitivity, which renders his current Holmes (what we have seen of him) a caricature by comparison to his performance here. Menenius is an elder statesman, a mentor figure, and an able politician with a clever tongue and a deft understanding of the populace. His character represents power in peace time, whereas Coriolanus personifies his own sword and shield, and is a weapon honed for war. And honed he was by his mother Volumnia, who is superbly played by the glorious Deborah Findlay.
The role of Volumnia is a meaty one, her character moving from a position of power to one of utter loss. Hers is a journey marked by hubris and destruction. And although the play is technically an ensemble piece, it’s the mother and her son who are the two halves of this play. If war, battle and blood-lust inform one side of Coriolanus’ life his mother informs the other, for all that Caius Marcius Coriolanus is married and has a young son. He has been shaped by his mother, shaped by her ambition and by the Rome that he grew up in. It makes of him a conquering soldier and a reluctant hero, then casts him out when he cannot deny his own nature and speak falsely or ‘spin’ like the consul politician his fellow members of the senate wish him to become. Worse, tragedy compounds itself in that once banished Coriolanus allies himself with enemies of Rome in order to revenge himself. From there, unfurls the real tragedy.
Both Tom Hiddleston and Deborah Findlay are fantastic. Words penned centuries ago by Shakespeare are spoken with ease and, completely naturally, by both. Their line delivery, as that of Mark Gatiss, is a thing of beauty and their performances eclipse those of the supporting cast who pale by comparison.
Set design wise the small space is sparsely dressed. Rows of chairs become the senate, or city parapets. A back wall is painted, graffiti daubed, at the rear of the set and this same wall is later scaled when another city is sacked. Coupled with choreography and pyrotechnics a real sense of battle is evoked, complete with cowering, shocked soldiers; encapsulating the the barbarism of the battlefield. The shocking image is, of course, Coriolanus’ face a mask of drying blood. The colour red is the main visual symbol, recurring throughout. It represents war (ie blood shed) love (a shower of rose petals thrown by an adoring public to their returning hero) and it represents political tokens or ballot slips. Their collection raise Coriolanus to consul and their torn pieces later herald his destruction; those torn fragments the antithesis of rose petals.
I found the first act ran long, meandering a little, but the second is taut, with all the tension of approaching invasion. Disappointing too was Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (Whom we all know as Katrine from Borgen) who seems awkward and ill at ease, not just due to her character’s situation. But damn if she doesn’t have one of the best jobs on the London stage nightly, at the minute!
Tom Hiddleston gives a beautiful physical performance. I shuddered in sympathy when Coriolanus washed, post battle, water stinging his wounds for that sting was so believable in the way his body jerked and flinched even before he was moved to tears.
Very, very, glad I saw this. I am left with the impression though that the recording and beaming of the performance, however wonderful, does lose something. In a small enclosed space such as The Donmar the power of the play, of battle sequences and sword fights must be truly heart-stopping.
Beautiful and strong performances from Findlay and Gatiss. Interesting staging. And a tour de force performance from Tom Hiddleston.
It may interest you to know there are encore screenings coming up.
Guardian review on this can be found here, if you’re interested.