The challenge inherant in seeing all of Shakespeare's plays is that some of them are not done very often for a variety of reasons. Not every play can be a hit, as any author will tell you. Coriolanus is just such a play. However, it seems to be the latest "discovered" play that is suddenly everywhere. It's a movie, it's a stage show.
We saw the stage version produced by the same people who did last summer's superviolent MacBeth in Seattle. This show was, thankfully, indoors at the charming Children's Theater housed in the Seattle Center.
There is a reason this show doesn't get produced very often. It's kinda boring, and set in a period of ancient Rome that has been lost to the mists of history. We suspect the coming presidential election has a hand in this play's current popularity, as Coriolanus spends much of his time objecting to running for office and the necessary hoop jumping that was as necessary to gain a majority then as now.
The story, in a large nutshell, revolves around a guy who has been crafted by his overbearing, helicopter mother to be the picture of a ruthless military leader, which leads to his inevitable rise to fame and power. The mother is inexplicitly bloodthirsty, the son is completely in her thrall to a creepy pathetic degree and by the end of the first act, Amanda simply didn't care. Coriolanus is no Julius Ceasar.
The acting was uniformly well spoken and articulate but tended to shout (unnecessary in such a small venue) and Coriolanus started at such a high pitch, there was nowhere for him to go. If he'd had any hair, it would have been pulled out early on. The mother, a physically tiny woman, towered over the other actors in strength, determination and power. She reminded Amanda's mother of the legendary Dame Judy Dench.
The venue, as mentioned, is small with audience uncomfortably close to the well-used voms. There were many entrances by soldiers in armor that nearly stepped on the feet of the woman sitting next to Amanda. The stage was set up in greys, reds and blacks, apparently trying to invoke the look and feel of an Occupy emcampment. For each scene shift, the actors moved various screens around to indicate different spaces while the lighting gave clues of where to look by turning dark areas into merely dim ones.
The many, many battlescenes throughout the show were well choreographed and visually interesting. There was a wide variety of weapons used and yet the most violent image was of a soldier sewing up his own bicep near the end of the show.
All in all, we can see why this show hasn't been done frequently in the past but anticipate that with the advent of "300" type CGI, the movie will be all kinds of slow motion, gory, bloody violence. No thanks. Amanda would rate the venue 5 quills for a boring set and cumbersome yet constant set movements, and boring dim lighting. Wendy would give it 8 quills because even though the seats were comfortable in the house, there was too little leg room. She also disliked the location of the theater generally.
Amanda rated the production a 7 mostly for willingness to try to mount one of the more obscure plays. But she thinks there is a lot of good reasons for not doing this show that outweighs doing it. Wendy rates it a 7 also as it was okay but she is in no hurry to go back or see another staging.
