(Untitled)

[apiphile]

So Coriolanus was pretty splendid. It seems the way to make me hate a character is to have them played by Mark Gatiss, certainly, and if I was supposed to hate the tribunes I certainly hated them a lot less in this version than in the Ralph Fiennes version I watched on a plane (this version was also more lively and less grey). Might just be because

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

Was this a film version or a theater version? I've seen bits of the Ralph Fiennes film version (it was briefly on rotation for Starz Asia as mid-afternoon filler, because they make the strangest decisions about movies here. There was a while when they decided Videodrome was perfect lunchtime viewing.)

[apiphile]

Live cast of the theatre version! Had Tom Hiddleston in it as the title character though. I saw most of the Ralph Fiennes version but this was a lot more lively.

[wolfy_writing]

This sounds very cool and interesting!

[redfiona99]

I am pleased that you enjoyed it (and am fiendishly jealous).

I think Menenius depends on the version.

[apiphile]

Ah so it does mean it's likely to be Mark Gatiss's awful face that makes him objectionable.

[redfiona99]

(Sorry for the late reply and it's length)

I couldn't possibly comment about Mark Gatiss's face. And I still haven't seen the Ralph Finnes version (which I must see because I want to see what they do with Volumina because Vanessa Redgrave was Volumina in the stage version I saw and the look of recognition of what she's done and what Coriolanus has done and how much he is what she made him at the end was magical and I want to see what it's like when she's also the general).

In the stage version I saw, their take on it, as I understood it, is that Coriolanus's fatal flaw is that he keeps trying to be the perfect Roman when he really isn't, and Menenius's advice wouldn't be bad if Coriolanus wasn't himself. Only exactly how Menenius doesn't notice that Coriolanus does not have what it takes to be a political animal is beyond me. And I think depending how they play that, Menenius can be all kinds of bad guy.

[apiphile]

I think in both versions I saw a large part of the problem was that people kept trying to make Martius be a man in the state of Rome when he was a machine for fighting FOR the state of Rome. He would have been perfectly happy to fight and then retire to a quiet life with his wife, fight, wife, fight, wife; much as a number of things I've seen set in Rome the principle problem seems to be an ambitious mother (problem would have been solved if they'd just let her go to war in the first place!)