Theatre review: Bard's gender-switched Coriolanus revisits Shakespeare's chilly hero
Credit to Author: Jerry Wasserman| Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 20:13:06 +0000
Coriolanus
When: To Sept. 21
Where: Bard on the Beach, Vanier Park
Tickets & Info: From $26 at bardonthebeach.org
In its 30th season, Bard on the Beach is staging its first production of one of Shakespeare’s least loved plays. Coriolanus suffers from the chilliness of its titular protagonist and a cast of mostly unsympathetic supporting characters.
Dean Paul Gibson’s production gives it a good go. Bard’s policy of gender-switching major roles makes Rome’s greatest soldier a woman. Moya O’Connell plays Coriolanus as a fierce psycho-warrior. Her lean, powerful intensity and bloody-minded combat efficiency overcome all obstacles on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, Coriolanus is as inept in the political arena as she is effective in the military.
As her antagonist, Aufidius, also a woman here, Marci T. House matches O’Connell in fierceness and strength. Leader of the enemy Volscian army and another primo fighter, she is a worthy — if not trustworthy — competitor. Aufidius’ lieutenant (Sara Vickruck) and Coriolanus’ general (Dalal Badr) are women, too.
Bard on the Beach’s Coriolanus, starring Moya O’Connell in the title role, runs until Sept. 21 at Vanier Park. Photo: Tim Matheson
Gender issues do become problematic at the end of the play and in the domestic scenes between Coriolanus, her spouse (here her husband, played by Anthony Santiago) and her domineering mother, Volumnia (Colleen Wheeler in another powerhouse performance).
It begins with a series of effective battle scenes with knives (not so effective with guns), choreographed by Lisa Stevens and Robinson Wilson. Caius Martius almost single-handedly takes the Volscian town of Corioles and wins the name Coriolanus.
Modest and selfless on the battlefield, Coriolanus is arrogant and virulently anti-populist back in Rome. Awarded the highest honour of Consul, she must go through the formality of asking the commoners for their approval. To say the least, she lacks the common touch.
Adding to her challenge, Rome’s hungry, fickle plebeians are easily swayed by their self-serving, sharkskin-suited, pseudo-populist tribunes (Craig Erickson, Praneet Akilla). Only Menenius (excellent Shawn Macdonald), defender of Coriolanus, seems a man of integrity.
Bard on the Beach’s Coriolanus, starring Moya O’Connell in the title role, runs until Sept. 21 at Vanier Park. Photo: Tim Matheson
So ensue many changes of mind and strategy and an awful lot of yelling. The people grudgingly accept Coriolanus, then the tribunes turn them against her. Menenius and Volumnia urge her to try again. She won’t, then she will, but she simply can’t debase herself or flatter. Losing her temper, she gets branded a traitor and banished from Rome.
Outraged, Coriolanus switches sides, joins Aufidius and leads the Volscian army to sack Rome. Only mom might talk her out of it, but at what price?
The mother-son relationship is central to Shakespeare’s play. Volumnia carefully plots Coriolanus’ career as war hero, then political leader. The more wounds, the better to impress the people. Wheeler and O’Connell have superb chemistry but a mother moulding and bullying her daughter has a different dynamic than shaping and bullying a son.
The masculinity issue comes into clearest focus at the end. Coriolanus’ awkwardly peripheral husband lacks the poignancy of Coriolanus’ wife and child begging him to spare Rome in Shakespeare’s version. And Coriolanus’ obsessive objection to Aufidius’ calling her “boy” makes little sense here.
Even if the play is not among Shakespeare’s strongest, dynamic central performances along with Barbara Clayden’s cinematic costumes and Jamie Nesbitt’s vivid projections, from Roman sculpture to Marxist graffiti, make this rare staging of Coriolanus well worth watching.