Howard’s Trumpet Concerto

Coriolanus, Macbeth
Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre
The Observer

The only thing lacking in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Coriolanus (Aldwych) is variety; it is rather like a concerto for trumpet and brass band.

There can be no question that Alan Howard is ideally cast in the title role, and little doubt that he delivers the performance of his career. Even more impressive than his physical energy, or his ability when spread-eagled (there’s a Roman thought) between the gates of Corioles to become an emblem of war, is his vocal stamina. He sounds the plays tintinnabulous music not only without flagging, but without even admitting that flagging might ever be a possibility. He has, too, the exact measure of Coriolanus’s embarrassment when put to the task of vote-catching, and the fury to which this leads him. For a moment, when he as acceded to his mother’s request to spare Rome, he is even moving. 

Not quite moving enough though, if you regard this moment as the climax of the play- as I (to confess my own bias) have regarded it since seeing Nicol Williamson crack almost visibly apart under the strain. Maxine Audley’s Volumina is now wittier and more robust than as Stratford, but the mother-son relationship is still underplayed. Other conflicts are well taken care of: Julian Glover’s Aufidius dogs Mr Howard’s footsteps, and even his tricks of voice, like envy personified but still with enough grace to justify last-minute repentance. Among the hero’s teammates, Graham Crowden is a juicy Menenius and the ever-reliable Jeffrey Dench an admirable Cominius. 

There is a vigorous crowd as well: though their scenes (including one they have pinched from a different group of characters altogether) are lacking in relaxation. Everyone on stage seems to be infected by the fierce restlessness of the protagonist. No director is more sensitive to the nuances of rhetoric (they do exist) than Terry Hands; which makes him the nonpareil conductor for nine-tenths of this score. Only the grace-notes escape him.

This Coriolanus is a production realized through sensitivity to language; I imagine that the National’s Macbeth (Olivier) has similar ambitions- though played as it is on a huge neutral platform (as opposed to the familiar leathery world of Farrah’s Rome at the Aldwych) it must have hoped for a flexible style rather than a uniform one. 

There are occasional touches of innovative spectacle; years ago, pondering an undernourished banquet scene, I wrote that ‘one day I would like to see this party stages as if it were worth breaking up.’ This time, with catering apparently by Simpsons-in-the-Glen, it has been; though I must admit that this does less than the play than I had hoped.

Another departure is the inclusion of the goddess Hecat, the witches commanding officer, whose jingling cues for song and dance (here taken in full) have generally been regarded as un-Shakespearean. Now that I have heard them, I would have to agree. Obviously I could not have reached this conclusion unless I had heard them, so I must be grateful for the opportunity, but they do seem to me to do fundamental harm to the play.

They set up a chain of dependence: Hecat dominates the Witches, they dominate Macbeth. He becomes their creature, largely unaware of what is happening to him, and by that much less interesting. He seems rather thick; events take him by surprise. Only at the end, when he becomes a savage fatalistic clown, does Albert Finney’s performance take hold, though by now crime and destinies have so knocked him out of shape that he seems more like Richard III. 

Otherwise Peter Hall’s production appears mainly concerned with getting people on and off stage. The best that can be said of it is that it provides a launching pad for the occasional brief solo flight: Dorothy Tutin’s invocation of the spirits, Nicky Henson’s deadpan confession as Malcolm to all possible sins, Robin Bailey’s moments of suspicion as Banquo, and pointed interventions by Lennox, Angus and the Third Witch. Imagination has seized up.

Listed as co-director is John Russell Brown, the National’s head of scripts and author of ‘Free Shakespeare’. I know know if his ideas are workable, but I do not see why they shouldn’t be tried. There are not here though; as I recall they involved having no director (here there are two), short texts (here we have every line) and informal playing spaces (here it’s the Olivier, even unto its very back wall). 

Macbeth is, paradoxically, a powerful argument for enlarging the National’s subsidy, allowing it to do more plays so the failures matter less and even (with some of the pressure off) become less frequent.