Review Roundup: CORIOLANUS at The National Theatre

The National Theatre is presenting Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, directed by National Theatre Associate Lyndsey Turner and featuring David Oyelowo in the titular role. The production, which follows Rome’s most celebrated warrior as he becomes its most dangerous enemy, is playing the Olivier theatre until 9 November.

Unrivalled in the art of war, undefeated on the field of battle, Coriolanus is Rome’s greatest soldier. When a legendary victory brings the opportunity of high office, he is persuaded to stand for election. But while populist politicians tell the people what they want to hear, Coriolanus refuses to play the game. As Rome’s most celebrated warrior becomes its most dangerous enemy, the future of the city and its hero hangs in the balance.

The cast includes Luke Aquilina, Chereen Buckley, Anushka Chakravarti, Anton Cross, Patrick Elue, Peter Forbes, Ashley Gerlach, Sam Hazeldine, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Kemi-Bo Jacobs, Marcia Lecky, Conor McLeod, Jordan Metcalfe, Pamela Nomvete, David Oyelowo, Richard Pryal, Jordan Rhys, Oliver Senton, Stephanie Street, Jo Stone-Fewings and John Vernon. Four young performers will also share the role of Young Marcius across the season: Kyron Allen, Deniro-Carter Bhola, Kaelum Nelson and Cale Cole.   

The creative team includes director Lyndsey Turner, set designer Es Devlin, Costume Designer Annemarie Woods, lighting designer Tim Lutkin, sound designer Tom Gibbons, video designer Ash J Woodward, fight director Sam Lyon-Behan, composer Angus MacRae, casting director Bryony Jarvis-Taylor, voice coaches Cathleen McCarron and Shereen Ibrahim, associate set designer Claudia Fragoso, associate Costume Designer Philip Engleheart, associate wigs, hair and make-up designer Adele Brandman, and staff director Júlia Levai. See what the critics are saying...

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Alexander Cohen, BroadwayWorld: It’s a relief that Lyndsey Turner’s pulsating new production resists cheap signposting. It isn’t concerned with holding a mirror to the present. Nor a magnifying glass to the past. For her, confluences of history weave together through myth and tear apart time: a tyrant in a toga is no different to one in a suit and tie.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: If there is not enough emotional tension in the drama as a whole, there is plenty of action-film energy to the fight scenes between Aufidius and Coriolanus (slow-mo punches and karate kicks), while the battlefield is well-evoked with light (by Tim Lutkin), sound (by Tom Gibbons) and projections. The production is, in the end, a triumph of stagecraft.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: A wonderfully natural but charismatic performer, Oyelowo was the first black actor to play an English king in a major Shakespeare production, as Henry VI for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001. Like many of his generation, he then found in America opportunities that were lacking here. There were tears in his eyes at the curtain call on opening night. And in mine too, almost.

Alice Saville, The Independent: Still, this is epic, blockbuster Shakespeare in the vein of the NT’s 2018 Antony and Cleopatra: exciting to watch, packed with powerful performances and memorable images. And beneath the bombast, there’s a reminder of the dangers of elitism even if – ironically – that message is delivered in stylishly opaque form.

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times: It’s a staging keenly aware of the power of iconography. Es Devlin’s stunning set is framed by huge pillars, reminiscent of the theatre’s concrete architecture, that rise and fall to compose a series of sleek modern interiors — homes, offices, restaurants — dotted with expensive Roman relics. Chief among these is a museum, where the unruly past is preserved in a tasteful arrangement of swords, shields and marble busts: a silent testimony to imperial might; a reminder of the fiercely contested ownership of such treasures.
 

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