The wrong man for the job?
Bred for the battlefield, Coriolanus is out of his league back in the Roman Senate, where leaders pursue their own agendas and the people are mad as hell. He can’t control his contempt and won’t compromise to save his life. Literally. Blame Volumnia, whose mother’s milk fed him heroism, but not humanity. Food for thought as we near our next presidential election. Laird Williamson’s expansive vision moves Shakespeare’s tragedy into the intimate New Theatre—up-close and personal.
Check out the Learn More tab for video interviews with director Laird Williamson.
Coriolanus photo: Danforth Comins as Coriolanus.
Artistic Team/Cast
Director
Scenic Designer
Costume Designer
Lighting Designer
Composer
Voice and Text Director
Dramaturg
Cast List
Coriolanus
Tullus Aufidius, Ensemble
Menenius Agrippa, Ensemble
Cominius, Ensemble
Volumnia, Ensemble
Virgilia, Ensemble
Sicinius, Ensemble
Titus Lartius, Ensemble
Brutus, Ensemble
Valeria, Ensemble
First Citizen, Ensemble
Adrian, Ensemble
Ensemble
Ensemble
* Member of Actors' Equity Association
Watch interviews with Laird Williamson:
Why Coriolanus? (3:46)
Early thoughts on the production (2:26).
Play Synopsis
Around 494 B.C., Rome’s starving citizens rebel against the ruling patrician class, whom they suspect of hoarding grain for profit. They specifically target Caius Martius, the young hero whose valor in war is matched by his pride and his contempt for the common people. As the mutinous citizens disperse, after being granted the right to choose five leaders, called “tribunes of the people,” to represent them, news comes that the neighboring Volscians mean to attack Rome. But Martius single-handedly captures the Volscian city of Corioles and leads the Roman army to victory over the Volscian general Aufidius—feats for which he is awarded a new name: Caius Martius Coriolanus.
At his triumphal return, the Senate rewards Coriolanus also with high political office, but his appointment as consul entails a public ritual in which Coriolanus must humbly display his wounds to win the consent of the people. Coriolanus, barely disguising his disdain, performs successfully, but when Sicinius and Brutus, two of the new tribunes, persuade the citizens to withdraw their approval, the outraged Coriolanus explodes with a diatribe so intemperate that the tribunes call him a “traitor to the people” and demand his death. At the urging of his mother, Volumnia, and friend Menenius, Coriolanus agrees to speak mildly to appease the tribunes and still be named consul—but once again he loses his temper, and is banished “as an enemy to the people.”
Leaving his family behind, and burning with pride and a desire for vengeance, Coriolanus turns his back on the Republic and joins with his enemy Aufidius, who is preparing to attack Rome again. Aufidius lets Coriolanus assume command of the Volscian armies and Rome soon trembles at the news of their irresistible advance.
Envoys from Rome (first his general, Cominius, and then Menenius) plead with Coriolanus not to destroy the city, but he is unmoved. In desperation, his mother, wife, son, and a family friend undertake the same mission, with the same results—until a final powerful appeal by Volumnia. As Coriolanus “holds her by the hand, silent,” his resolve melts, and he agrees to spare Rome, with a treaty of peace favorable to the Volscians.
The women who have saved Rome return there in triumph. Coriolanus, however, remains with the Volscians. Aufidius, jealous of his leadership, sees in Coriolanus’s mercy to Rome an opportunity to destroy him. In the marketplace of Corioles, Aufidius publicly accuses Coriolanus of treason, and his Volscian co-conspirators demand Coriolanus’s death. Urged on by the people of Corioles, whose friends and family the Roman warrior had slaughtered when he won his name, they murder Coriolanus. -Alan Armstrong
Coriolanus photo: Danforth Comins as Coriolanus.