The design work on the National Theatre’s Coriolanus is exceptional but it isn’t a production that ever really ignites
“Well, mildly be it then. Mildly.”
Between set designer Es Devlin and costume designer Annemarie Woods, Lyndsey Turner’s new production of Coriolanus is simply stunning to look at in the vast space of the National’s Olivier Theatre. An intricate network of columns rise and fall to suggest Roman fora, museum spaces, battlefields, even the brutalist touches of the South Bank itself, whilst also forming a backdrop for a public space where we bear witness to video calls, CCTV footage and livestreamed events in this moment of political unrest.
Woods’ costumes locate us firmly in the elite of this Rome – luscious velvet suits and gorgeously constructed gowns, burgundy military outfits and fabulous widow’s weeds that feel like they’ve stepped off a catwalk. Married to Tom Gibbons’ growling sound work and Angus MacRae’s compositions, the cumulative creative effect is superb, dressed in Tim Lutkin’s lighting. What this all can’t really distract from though, is that this isn’t one of Shakespeare’s finest works and that too much of its presentation here lacks excitement.
David Oyelowo looks and sounds like an absolute treat as Caius Marcius, a Roman captain whose military exploits see him granted with the honorific Coriolanus. As a member of the city’s elite, his fellow aristocrats urge him to seek elected office as Consul but his hauteur has long been detested by the very popular masses he now needs to vote for him. Unable or unwilling to mask his contempt, he’s banished from the city with viscious and violent repercussions, a pertinent warning for any riven society.
Little of this action really cuts through to get the heart beating. Oyelowo’s cerebral interpretation means there’s not quite the explosive energy needed to get onboard with his insurrectionist; Pamela Nomvete as his mighty mother Volumnia and Kemi-Bo Jacobs as his wife Virgilia both feel too emotionally distant from him too, undercutting the chemistry that should make these relationships burn with urgency. Jordan Metcalfe and Stephanie Street as troublemaking tribunes Brutus and Sicinius end up registering the most, wrinkling the slick and sometimes too sterile aesthetic.
