Last week, Alaska governor (and one-time vice presidential candidate) Sarah Palin resigned from office, placing much of the blame for her decision on what she called attacks by the liberal media. Coriolanus can relate.
On Sunday, an updated production of "Coriolanus" opened at the Old Globe Summer Shakespeare Festival, and director Darko Tresnjak seems to have channeled the spirit, spin and cynicism of modern politics in this media-saturated world into the production.
In Shakespeare's based-on-fact tragedy, Caius Marcius Coriolanus was a victorious Roman general brought down by his pride and his bad temper as well as his disdain for the common people, who turn on Coriolanus with the manipulative goading of the city's two tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus (who in the Globe staging are dressed in newsboy caps, with one holding a newspaper). Tresnjak's production sets the scene in a totalitarian society that could be 1930s Russia or 1940s Germany, but thanks to the coincidental timing of Palin's departure from public office, the story has an even more contemporary connection.
Never shy about massaging Shakespeare's texts to improve their modern stage appeal, Tresnjak has sliced, spliced and cleverly layered scenes from the 1610 play to keep the action hurtling along and heighten the story's dramatic punch, particularly the explosive closing scene that freeze-frames the horror of Coriolanus's sacrifice with a seeming homage to Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream."
With Herculean-sized actor Greg Derelian in the title role (often bathed in gobs of stage blood and covered in battle scars), and a larger-than-life production dominated by oversized red flags that snap and flap in the evening breeze, the production makes a dark, imposing visual impact. But Tresnjak likes mixing darkness and light, and he builds a fair amount of humor into the story with the twisted, symbiotic relationship between Coriolanus and his bloodthirsty, overprotective "mommy dearest," Volumnia.
The play is based on the heroic real-life Roman general who defeated the Volscians at Corioli in the 5th century BC. The Roman Senate honored Caius Marcius with a title (Coriolanus, in honor of the vanquished city) but when he refused to follow tradition and humble himself before the citizens of Rome, the tribunes lead a revolt and he is banished. Seeking revenge, Coriolanus teams with Aufidius, his defeated Volscian rival, in a plan to sack Rome. But when Volumnia pleads with her son to spare the city, he relents and pays the ultimate price for his mercy.
Derelian's performance as Coriolanus is multilayered, at times brutish and childish, at others, humble and sensitive. Celeste Ciulla, a veteran of eight Globe Shakespeare productions, gives a delicious, scenery-chewing performance as the ice-veined Volumnia (whose best line is: "Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself"). And Charles Janasz is sad, fatherly and heartfelt as Menenius, the cautious, reasoning Roman senator who tries desperately to save Coriolanus from himself. And Grant Goodman and James Newcomb are oily, smug and sneering as the tribunes Sicinius and Brutus.
As Aufidius, the swishy Volscian who adoringly embraces Coriolanus and tells him: "more dances my rapt heart than when I first my wedded mistress saw," Brendan Griffin plays the role like a vapid pretty-boy dressed in soldier's clothing. Gerritt VanderMeer is appropriately severe as the Roman army commander Cominius. And Catherine Gowl cowers as Coriolanus's weak-willed wife, Virgilia.
Interestingly, Tresnjak has the role of Coriolanus' preteen son played by a life-size puppet, a faceless mute whose future has yet to be written.
"Coriolanus" is running in repertory with two other plays, Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" (delightfully directed by Paul Mullins) and Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac" (also directed by Tresnjak and one of the best-ever shows in festival history) on the Globe's outdoor Lowell Davies Festival stage in Balboa Park. The three plays are so different in style and tone, all three deserve to be seen by anyone who appreciates classical theater.
"Coriolanus"
When: 8 p.m.Thursday and July 16, 22 and 30; Aug. 2, 5, 11, 14, 19, 22, 25 and 28; Sept. 1, 5, 8, 13, 17, 23 and 25
Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Old Globe complex, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $29-$76
Info: 619-234-5623
Web: www.oldglobe.org
