The Tragedy of Coriolanus

The bard enters the battle of the bands in The Tragedy of Coriolanus, an international adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic text with a unique musical accompaniment.

Billed as “Heavy Metal meets Shakespeare” the Beijing People’s Art Theatre may have orchestrated the most mismatched theatrical blind date of all time. From the very outset, the music and verse are utterly disjointed, each song falling into place with an audible thunk. It’s as if an aggressively loud Black Sabbath ringtone were reverberating around the stalls whilst the cast continued their exchange of monologues unabated.

During extended speeches, the band stand in their small musicians’ pen uncertain of what to do in the interim. They slump and stare morosely around the gilded space feeling their metal credentials drain away with every passing second, mourning the death of their rock n’ roll lifestyle.

Behind the band, an ornate framework laces the back of the stage and great siege ladders cut down from the rafters. It’s dim amidst the jutting struts and shadow play upon the wall. The backdrop gives the space an industrial, expansive feel that’s more than slightly sinister. Yi Liming’s design is as beautifully stagnant as the rest of the production. Observed in immobility the display is stunning but it is clearly two-dimensional in the extreme.

The absence of a fight choreographer is embarrassingly evident. You’d find more convincing combat in a production of The Pirates of Penzance. With the achingly slow clashing of blades, the battle sequences find themselves in a theatrical grey. Too over-elaborate to be symbolic, too agonisingly dull to be realistic. The bloody skirmishes are reduced to hosts of extras half-heartedly clattering their sticks like a troupe of demoralised Morris dancers.

Meanwhile Martius is engaged in an intense duel for his very survival. The spectacle might have carried more dramatic weight if it weren’t occurring in what appeared to be acutely sluggish slow-motion. After the dust settles Martius, now with the given name Coriolanus, is asked to display his dreadful battle scars. It would be a surprise if he left that pre-teen tussle with anything more grievous than a sprained ankle.

The real killing blow to this already fatally wounded production is its ill-conceived subtitle system. Mounted in the boxes to the right and left of the stage these comparatively tiny digital displays flicker frantically to keep up with the reams of text. The audience are left staring, transfixed, as if the bard himself were sitting there frantically attempting to communicate the convoluted events of the play through semaphore. All the physicality that would make the complex piece even mildly diverting is lost as the audience’s focus ricochets back and forth like a linguistic tennis match.

A dramatic and bloody tale brought to its knees by playground style fight sequences and user-hostile subtitles, The Tragedy of Coriolanus is as disastrous as its title would suggest.

The Tragedy of Coriolanus is playing at Edinburgh Playhouse as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. For more information please see to the Edinburgh International Festival Website.