Theater review by Billy McEntee
“He’s losing it.” “PURE MELTDOWN.” “I love watching his ego collapse in 4K.” These could be social-media comments on a Senate hearing, and indeed they are—but in Ancient Rome, not the United States. The current production of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Coriolanus at Theatre for a New Audience is a blend of the contemporary and the classical. A columned pantheon and a live video feed both overlook the stage in Afsoon Pajoufar’s spare multilevel set, and McKinley Belcher III gives modern spins to the title character’s modes of masculinity: the cocky bro, the momma’s boy, the war hero who falls from grace. Shakespeare charts a clear rise and fall for his doomed protagonist, and Belcher surfs those waves exuberantly.
The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Photograph: Courtesy Hollis King
Coriolanus is not Shakespeare’s most compelling work, but this production’s standout actors, anchored by Belcher, could make you think otherwise. The plot includes war, politics and a civic uprising as the Roman general Coriolanus vanquishes the rival Volscians only to plead for their alliance when his arrogant refusal to display his battle wounds gets him banished from Rome. The ping-pong of allegiances threatens to get confusing, but director Ash K. Tata keeps the action clear and active, and projections by Lisa Renkel and Possible help define the locations. Other sequences are less clear; during battles, the video design sometimes becomes a muddled first-person shooter game, à la Call of Duty. But the performances are always crystalline.
The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Photograph: Courtesy Hollis King
Jason O'Connell, as the Roman senator Menenius, speaks with a dynamic musicality, descending from deferential to desperate as he struggles to control the increasingly unwieldy general. The female roles are mostly afforded less range—gentlewomen Virgilia (Meredith Garretson) and Valeria (Emma Ramos) are little more than props in our antihero’s emotional arc—but Coriolanus’s mother, Volumnia, is a full and imposing figure. As embodied by the commanding Roslyn Ruff, Volumnia is an iceberg: cool and sturdy, with a power that looms beneath the surface. Powerful women have long guided men behind the scenes, but in this production, one of them also becomes an adversary: Tullus Aufidius, Coriolanus’s blood enemy. Mickey Sumner schemes, seethes and slays in the role—and it is she, not he, who gets the last word when the bright Roman candle sputters out.
The Tragedy of Coriolanus. Theatre for a New Audience (Off Broadway). By William Shakespare. Directed by Ash K. Tata. With McKinley Belcher III, Roslyn Ruff, Mickey Sumner, Jason O'Connell, Emma Ramos, Meredith Garretson. Running time: 2hrs 45mins. One intermission.
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The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Photograph: Courtesy Hollis King
