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It’s a little bit of a danger to place a lesser-known Shakespeare play with a vaguely comical title within the Nationwide Theatre’s huge Olivier area. However you wouldn’t understand it from the monumental confidence of Lyndsey Turner’s swaggering manufacturing, filled with vintage grandeur and up-to-the-minute fireworks. The story’s set within the early days of Historic Rome – the town’s fierce origin fable referenced by a large statue of the wolf who suckled its twin founders. However Turner’s aesthetic is refined somewhat than feral, gesturing in direction of the distant elite that stifled Rome till it declined and fell.
In slo-mo struggle scenes with a cinematic polish we see Coriolanus, performed by David Oyelowo, earn his popularity as a formidable warrior. The actor strikes superbly in flashes of strobe, the messiness of battle forgotten. Then, the Roman Senate anoint him as consul, and he turns into much less certain of his actions, confronted with the duty of profitable over the town’s bizarre residents – like Cordelia in King Lear, he’s reluctant to placed on a public efficiency of sentiment, Oyelowo closing himself off in nervous detachment as they demand to see his battle scars. Some productions make the individuals of Rome into an unruly rabble for Coriolanus to sneer at: right here, they’re nonetheless and dignified, and his jibes about their smelly garments really feel extra like an outlet for his deep social awkwardness.
There are such a lot of potential fashionable parallels to Coriolanus: the chief who refuses to bow to populism, or to grasp that the individuals who’ve raised him up are equally able to tearing him down when it fits them. Turner takes an intriguing sideways step away from politics by setting the stage in an artwork gallery, referencing actions like Rhodes Should Fall, or the campaigns to decolonise the British Museum. Set designer Es Devlin has crafted levels for the likes of Beyoncé, and she or he’s on full, voluptuously extravagant kind right here, unleashing an intricate succession of concrete cuboids that reference the Nationwide Theatre’s personal Brutalist battlements, studded with treasures. Historic statues linger on stage, a reminder of how classical studying has underpinned the considering of recent political elites – or how energy is stolen and hoarded. A gilded reproduction of the Elgin Marbles seems behind Coriolanus when he finally descends into full misanthropic fury, Oyelowo making good, snarling work of a speech the place he turns his again on the institution that fashioned him.
There aren’t many jokes on this sombre play, however Turner’s staging brings out all its ironic wit: when Coriolanus crashes into the HQ of his enemies the Volscians, she units the scene in a bustling lodge kitchen whose white-clad cooks are bewildered by this bedraggled warrior’s sudden look. And its hilarious duo of officious tribunes Brutus (Jordan Metcalfe) and Sicinius (Stephanie Avenue) really feel like they’re straight from a political sitcom, resolutely bizarre amid the chaos they trigger.
The play’s deepest bond is between Coriolanus and his mom, Volumnia – right here, Pamela Nomvete is imperious and grand as this matriarch, their love feeling just a little summary till the touching second when she kneels and stumbles just a little, her ankles sore, and her son’s distant delight crumbles too. This manufacturing strikes at a clip by the early scenes, which means relationships like this don’t have area to bloom, and plot factors are onerous to parse – as knowledgeable orator Menenius, Peter Forbes stands out for treating his traces with a welcome care and relish.
Nonetheless, that is epic, blockbuster Shakespeare within the vein of the NT’s 2018 Antony and Cleopatra: thrilling to observe, filled with highly effective performances and memorable pictures. And beneath the bombast, there’s a reminder of the hazards of elitism even when – mockingly – that message is delivered in stylishly opaque kind.
Nationwide Theatre, till 9 November; nationaltheatre.org.uk
