Shakespeare

Simon Jenner September 24^th  2024

Placard-wielding protesters who morph into rioters with knives. Yet their reps are later measured for freebie clothes. A world where left and right collapse into the rage of an oppressed people; whereas the ruling elites seem one class. An epic Coriolanus of lucidity and scale directed by Lyndsey Turner till November 9^th seems not just resonant but prophetic.

Indeed the two tribunes, Brutus (Jordan Metcalfe) and Sicinius (Stephanie Street), are here given licence as major party fixers, SPADs without responsibility inciting riot. Representing the poor they do “great hurt and mischief” to Rome (as Coriolanus claims he has to the Volsci). It might sound paradoxical that Metcalfe and Street emerge as major players, but their performances are a highlight.

Coriolanus (David Oyelowo) originally appears in a meek dinner suit to quell the trouble. Literally emerging from his class he drips with privilege and a shell of urbanity, with his adoptive father Menenius (an excellent and saddened Peter Forbes) who later discovers the limits of his influence. It’s a powerful symbol of Turner’s vision of us and them.

This is though a production of thew and power too, particularly from Act Four when in Es Devlin’s magnificent set the depth of the Olivier is revealed studded with fires in the Volscian encampment, or in smoky battle in Sam Lyon-Behan’s striking fight-direction.

Oyelowo takes his time to release the depth of his contempt. Too long perhaps.  But at the climactic “I banish you” and vault off the stage (no spoilers, but he makes a thrilling exit) this is finally a Coriolanus of thrilling arrogance and power unleashed.

David Oyelowo Photo Credit National theatre

There’s two key relationships that either humanise Coriolanus, incapable of self-reflection, or render this play as marmoreal as Devlin’s set. It’s one Shakespeare that has to be cracked open or it turns into its own effigy.

The first between Coriolanus and his mother, Volumnia (Pamela Nomvete, vocally adamantine), emphasises the Roman matron tough-love syndrome; and this love is for the most part one-way. At one great moment though, when Coriolanus breaks with the elemental relationship between them, his dependency finally shudders out. We see Coriolanus’ fatal need to bring trophies back to his mother, though fleetingly.  It’s been a long time coming. Nomvete too by this time is moving in her supplication. It is though too late to raise the tragedy.

Coriolanus and his wife, Virgilia (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) are condemned to the “gracious silence” he greets her with. Some productions edge a gestural tenderness, a moment. Not here. Jacobs finds far more release as Appius, a protesting but emollient citizen.

The second key relationship with Aufidius (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith), the Volscian general can be charged with homoerotic tension. He treats Coriolanus as his peers complain “like a mistress” and this Act Four volte-face can be electric with conflicting passion discharged painfully throughout the rest of the play.

Josie Rourke’s chamber-sized 2013 Donmar production excelled in this. Holdbrook-Smith stands more aloof, including the final moments with Coriolanus: as if he too is a patrician letting others carry out the assault. But the lack of chemistry here nullifies their love-hate relationship.

Jacobs’ confederate Conor Macleod the knife-wielding protester Antonio is volatile, as is his later Volscian chef. It’s one of many literally edgier performances that make one regret this level of detail doesn’t enjoy such an overwhelming production.

There are huge virtues though. For one thing Turner’s clarity illuminates both the argument and seething multitude of this complex (and originally very long) play. A large multi-roling cast irradiate small moments. Sam Hazeldine’s youthful and battle-weary Cominus always advising and being ignored; Jo Stone-Fewings a more patrician General stiffened to ritual. There’s telling contributions from Oliver Senton as a suave senator on both sides, Anushka Chakravarti particularly strong in her protester Alba claiming her vote for banishment was “pity” and changing tune every scene. Ashley Gerlach’s trounced Volscian guard complaining to another in Richard Pryal’ and Luke Aquilina’s harassed tailor. Cheren Buckley, Anton Cross, Patrick Elue, Marcia Lecky, Jordan Rhys, John Vernon glint in multiple cameos.

Devlin’s extraordinary set dominates both as spectacle and story. And as if hewn in stone it takes a while to fire up (that does literally happen). The Oliver’s initially quite shallow. From precious museum objects plinthed and foregrounded – both as exquisite interior and fragile public art –  through to hewn-square pillars that descend in different volumes and arrangements, also doubling as screens. The Volscians feature Etruscan friezes.

Tim Lutkin’s lighting irradiates their hollowness or solidity.  Occasionally there’s a zoom link to a hidden committee. Mostly though in Ash J Woodword’s video, actors are doubled behind themselves as news items, and black and white surveillance footage emerges like a newsreel for riot squads, scudding over the surface. Angus McCrae’s thrubbing score is deft and discreet too.

A world of comms like this still fights with sword and shield: there’s none of that muddle of machine-guns and scimitars some productions hedge bets with. Annemarie Woods’ magenta-themed uniforms and dresses ingeniously swivel to helmets invoking ancient and modern riot gear. Finally the deputation of women arrives at the Volscian camp head-dressed in a ritual that fingers back into prehistory. It’s where Young Martius (Kaelum Nelson on this occasion) scores with diminutive ire and pathos.

Certainly a Coriolanus blazing with extrinsic relevance, it brings clarity to a play that can seem an unmitigated grey – stoked with superannuated furies and irrelevant. Nearly every point and scene is rinsed clear in two hours 55. What it lacks is not tragic point, but the mainspring of tragedy to make Oyelowo’s crash the titanic thing it might be.

Directed by Lyndsey Turner, Set Designer Es Devlin, and Costume Designer Annemarie Woods, Lighting Designer Tim Lutkin, Sound Designer Tom  Gibbons, Composer Angus McCrae, Video Designer Ash J Woodword

Fight Director Sam Lyon-Behan, Casting Director Bryony Jarvis-Taylor, Voice Coaches Cathleen McCarron and Shereen Ibrahim, Dialect Coach Richard Ryder, Associate Set Designer Claudia Fragoso, Associate Costume Designer Philip Engleheart, Associate Wigs, Hair & Make-up Designer Adele Brandeman, Intimacy Co-ordinator Ingrid Mackinnon

Producer Harriet Macke, Production Manager Heather Doole, Dramaturg Stewart Pringle, CSM Laura Draper, DSM Emily Porter, ASMs Sophie Alice Cooper and Wen-Haing-Chiang

Simon Jenner August 14th 2024 The Company Photo Credit Marc Brenner

“Go to then, your considerate stone.” Enobarbus is silenced, Yet here in this first production in ten years of Antony and Cleopatra at the Globe directed by Blanche McIntyre till September 15th, there’s two cultures separated by two languages on stage: one is spoken.

Egypt’s is realised in BSL, associate director Charlotte Arrowsmith and BSL consultant Daryl Jackson working with caption co-designer Ben Glover and Sarah Readman, to project words on several eminently readable screens (different fonts for Rome and Egypt). One in red and white perches above the balcony; itself used in one of the two best set-scenes, at Pompey’s boat party.

This is easily the most comprehensive integration of BSL and spoken language I’ve seen. Whereas Rome’s voluble words are carved in air like inscriptions by cast members, Egypt’s is designed with eye-catching intimacy. There are new gestures for death (an Anubis sign, not the standard gunshots) and signals that work, particularly if you’re in front of the stage. Sightlines and some pillars can obstruct this and occasionally the action.

A third language, Tim Sutton’s music, with an ancient horn and trombone ensemble led by Joley Cragg, is a sparingly yet tellingly used sequences of flourishes, with comic timing.

Nadia Nadarajah commands as Cleopatra throughout. Her gestures ring out: though non-BSL readers won’t make out signing words Nadarajah’s actions and looks are unmistakable. This comes into painfully comic relief when Mardian’s Nadeem Islam is beaten up for bearing bad news (elsewhere he plays put-upon eunuch Alexas).

Mark Antony (John Hollingworth) is a match for Nadarajah, exuding dispatch and energy, a relatively youthful Antony with the glow of Philippi still upon him and the smart of Octavius Caesar’s ascent like a slap he’s not yet recovered from. As if echoing Cleopatra’s jibe about “On a sudden a Roman thought hath struck him”, Hollingworth snaps into them when meeting Romans. His body stiffens, his gestures quicken. The absence of BSL in this world means everything goes clean to the word where nuance is lost.

Excellent in this too is Bert Seymour’s lean and watchful Octavius, trying not to prowl and pounce; weighing his utterance like light stones. Peter Landi as Lepidus exudes his character’s lack of gravitas not in any foolish action. An outward dignity slips on conciliatory nostrums. The party-scene with his drunken slurs omits the latter self-betrayal, replaced with egging-on cheers.

John Hollingworth, Peter Landi, Bert Seymour’ Photo credit Marc Brenner

Mark Donald’s Dolabella brings a warm tinge to Roman policy with a clarity the character doesn’t feel. Esther MacAuley’s Agrippa, who comes up with the Octavia marriage bonds well with both Enobarbus and Pompey. As piratical Menas McAuley is exuberant in a cut-throat proposal, exasperated with Pompey’s finessing of conscience. As Proculeius, McAuley confides to Cleopatra the warning Dolabella should have given. Though the underscoring “Make what use of this you may” is lost. Some oft-cut badinage remains in this this two hours 45 traversal, where some better-known lines go.

Daniel Millar’s Enobarbus is consistently watchable, with his keen-eared weariness consistently correcting Roman assumptions of Antony, yet palpably torn between the two cultures. He naturally ends splitting his heart. Millar’s description of Cleopatra’s arrival allows him to rise octaves in a scale of praise, and descant on wonder.

It’s Enobarbus who predicts that Antony’s marrying Octavia will hasten disaster. Gabriela Leon straddles both worlds of BSL and spoken: as Iras always second to Charmian, she exudes frustration. As a pained Octavia the weight of political marriage, hopeful accommodation followed by betrayal allows McIntyre to etch the degree to which Seymour’s Octavius can even empathise with what he’s wrought. As Antony-whipped  Thyreus, Leon completes a trilogy of the most effective multi-roling on stage.

Gabin Kongolo as Pompey exudes a lithe presence, the nearly man lacking ruthlessness. William Grint using BSL mostly, and a few explosive words, is riveting as Soothsayer, Clown and Soldier as well as Diomedes: each role a shiver of foreboding. There’s Roman work from Rhiannon May and Tom Simper, particularly in exchanges with Enobarbus.

Zoë McWhinney as Charmian builds her role from playfulness to a detonation of silent grief at Iras’s death. It’s electrifying as it is revealing. Before this McWhinney brings out Charmian’s mischief, though even here she shudders learning from the Soothsayer she will outlive her mistress. After, she plays only to adjust Cleopatra’s crown.

Another set-piece with choreographer Mark Smith is the reduced battles scenes enacted as the briefest of ballets, where Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown’s fight and intimacy co-ordination mostly isn’t needed. Love and violence happen off the battlefield. A few grand costumes aside, Simon Daw’s design extends to unfussy minimal attire, and a balcony swathed in blue cloth setting off the screen but allowing an abstraction from Pompey’s sails to battlegrounds.

The production hinges on the chemistry between Nadarajah and Hollingworth. Certainly the timing of their furious exchanges is well-caught on both screen and action. Of all moments in the play this is the most difficult of all to translate into two functional languages. Inevitably the sheer vocal clash of say Antony and Cleopatra is missing on one level, or the exuberant badinage of the Egyptian court. That can make for a certain distance. What makes up for that is warmth, stand-offs that threaten and the gestural tenderness on the interface of speech and signing; some credit for this must go to BSL coach Adam Bassett.

Gabriella Leon, Nadia Nadarajah and Zoë McWhinney Photo Crecit Marc Brenner

Though reading the text can distract from the acting with BSL, there’s a huge gain in clarity, which can be an advantage even with spoken dialogue. There’s a case for making this a permanent fixture, especially with productions using BSL or occasionally other languages. But it might not stop there. Occasionally lack of vocal clarity has been a feature of the Globe for several years, and this might address it.

A groundbreaking production, it also plays to the separation of cultures and tongues, the vast distances and epic scale of the work – itself ideally suited to this concept. It mightn’t be the most emotionally engrossing Antony and Cleopatra, nor boast the most detailed characterisation – this space isn’t designed for that. But that is from the perspective of a hearing audience member. There is much I missed that others won’t. It sets a high benchmark that needs following up.

William Grint Photo Credit Marc Brenner