As one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays, Coriolanus is startlingly relevant under Trump 2.0

Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays; perhaps because the hero is so pugnacious and classist, impressive in his strident vehemence, but lacking the vulnerability of a Macbeth or Othello.

Set in the turbulent early Roman Republic (490s BC) – about 450 years before Caesar’s death – the play follows the glorious rise of Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, a terrifying war machine on the battlefield who could carve his way through enemy regiments.

According to one site, the play has not been professionally staged outside the United Kingdom since 2000. This is only the second time Bell Shakespeare has performed Coriolanus, with their other production staged 29 years ago, in 1996.

Directed by Peter Evans and starring Hazem Shammas, this Coriolanus delivers Shakespeare’s most consciously political play with an explosive energy that charts the hero’s psychological downfall.

Published as a tragedy in the 1623 First Folio, Coriolanus can loosely be described as a history play. But it is more commonly recognised as one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, alongside Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus.

War and exile

Renamed “Coriolanus” after the town he most recently conquered (Corioli), occupied by the arch enemies of Rome (the Volsci), Coriolanus is a devoted son to his fiercely ambitious “tiger mum” Volumnia (Brigid Zengeni).

Shakespeare was never shy about the feats of his warrior protagonists, describing Coriolanus’ ability as a war machine most memorably as:

His sword, Death’s stamp, Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered The mortal gate o’ th’ city, which he painted With shunless destiny; aidless came off And with a sudden reinforcement struck Corioles like a planet.

But Coriolanus, who was brought up to win every contest, is also an upper-class patrician, dismissively scornful of the common people’s plebeian rights in the burgeoning Roman Republic.

Coriolanus’s absolute refusal to flatter the plebeians – and so refusing their political influence – ignites a brutal conflict between populism and elitism that results in the people’s sway.

Coriolanus is exiled from Rome, the very homeland he fought so valiantly to protect.

Incensed, Coriolanus joins forces with Rome’s greatest enemy, the Volscian Aufidius (Anthony Taufa) and marches against Rome. This forces Coriolanus to confront his own loyalties to his formidable mother and to doting wife Virgilia (Suzannah McDonald), with tragic consequences.

Wonderful performances

Evans has loosely set this production in Europe in the mid-1990s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, though this creates a vibe more than a direct correlation to events.

Evans also designed the set, making dynamic use of a traverse stage that forces audiences to see each other across the divide. This enhances the sense of a sprawling populous while prompting reflections on our own political milieu. Audiences are told as they enter whether they will sit on the “plebeian” or “patrician” side: a fun ploy, but perhaps unnecessary.

Stealing the show is a wonderful performance by Peter Carroll as Menenius, a sagely Roman senator who uses his charm and political tact to mediate between the patricians and the plebeians. Carroll brings great irony to the role, using eye-rolls and tutting even as he attends dutifully to the new political expectations of the tribunes.

The tribunes Sicinius (Matilda Ridgway) and Brutus (Marco Chiappi) are performed as shabbier left-wing agitators pitched against the conservative patricians in formal dark suits (costumes by Ella Butler). This makes familiar the political and class tensions, and the layers and dramatic dimensions explored by Shakespeare.

Zengeni brings tremendous heart to Coriolanus’s mother, Volumnia. She is especially good at applying a tiger mother’s pressure of unrelenting standards. There is no doubt that the shining elitism of her son was roughly forged by her sharp expectations.

Shammas as Coriolanus is a force to be reckoned with. His rigid athleticism perfectly suits the superman heroics of this Roman warrior. His unabashed gesticulations are a welcome contribution to the sense of the lines he delivers.

Following a scene that ends with one of Coriolanus’s unleashed tirades against the plebeians, Shammas’ performance is so dynamic, and his invective so rigorously conveyed, it seems to remain on stage after he exits.

A timeless tale

There is some reluctance to physically depict the pitched battle of Corioli, which falls a bit flat and misses an opportunity to heighten the dramatic stakes. But this production does very well to animate the complex political and familial drivers that compel Coriolanus toward his inevitable end.

As President Trump drops f-bombs because his real bombs did not make people do his bidding, this rare Shakespeare play becomes timeless.

There has always been need to explore the tragic consequences of leaders who subjectively refuse the offers of diplomacy. Bell Shakespeare’s choice of scheduling war plays this season offers countless ways to reflect on our own world, and the populations of real people connected to the decisions of those in power.

Coriolanus is at the The Neilson Nutshell, Sydney, until July 19, then touring to Melbourne.

Kirk Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.