Review: CORIOLANUS at Olivier Theatre, National

The National’s Olivier stage plays host to the born-to-rule-but-earned-his-spurs, would be consul, whose haughty demeanour and undisguised contempt for the plebeian classes, fails to endear him come election time. Indignant at having his elitist attitudes challenged, he throws an ancient-world hissy fit and scuttles back to his respected long-time former adversary Aufidius (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) whom he convinces to allow him to mount and lead a vengeful attack on Rome to assuage his insulted pride. Faced with a likely onslaught, his long time friend and counsel Menenius (a terrific turn from Peter Forbes), then his wife Virgilia (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) and mother Volumnia (Pamela Nomvete) are dispatched to dissuade him from his headstrong course and he finally succumbs to their pleading and settles on the role of peacemaker. But things never end well for men who allow their slighted egos to determine whose side they are on.

At the beginning of the evening as the audience members take their seats, an arrangement of giant pillars occupy the stage each sporting overhead projections of plebeians gradually entering an arena and being corralled by incense-wafting flunkies. The parallel between this scene and the theatre auditorium with its ushers, was a wonderfully subtle theatrical in-joke, but one which may have eluded many.

In a truly assured title role performance from David Oyelowo, the bard’s testosterone infused power play is given full rein, without ever losing the intellectual assuredness and superiority borne of class entitlement. Only when Coriolanus is challenged by the tribunes Brutus and Sicinius (Jordan Metcalfe and Stephanie Street) does he realise the ignominy of being usurped by people power declaring that the Plebs holding sway over their superiors is akin to allowing crows to peck the eagles — at which point he petulantly refutes their right to banish him, declaring instead that he banishes Rome from his sight.

Lyndsey Turner directs an accomplished cast who are often clad in Annemarie Woods’ eye-catching burgundy and camel palette military costumes, as they perform battle sequences and scenes of political machinations on Es Devlin’s strikingly beautiful and atmospheric set with lighting by Tim Lutkin and those subversively clever video designs by Ash J Woodward. The overall effect is of a large scale production with the clean lines and understated stylishness of a modern museum. The mix of period and modern, blends remarkably effectively and the results are never less than strong and sophisticated.