ANDI JANIS TAYLOR

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2024 production of Coriolanus, directed by Rosa Joshi and performed by actors from upstart crow collective using the Play On Shakespeare modern translation by Sean San José, blurs the line between hatred and romance in Shakespeare’s world of war and political tension. Roman war hero turned politician Caius Martius, later christened “Coriolanus,” and his Volscian sworn enemy Aufidius demonstrate a passionate relationship both textually and within the world of OSF’s production. However, what may be interpreted as passionate respect for a rivaling adversary in both Shakespeare’s text and Sean San José’s translation, turns into an explicitly romantic, sensual passion in this retelling due to specific choices made regarding the presentation of bodies onstage and Joshi’s cinematic and abstract movement-based directorial vision. 

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In terms of casting, there are two major elements that contribute to the romantic emphasis on Coriolanus and Aufidius’ relationship: the size of the cast and the physical makeup of the cast. As Joshi mentioned, a typical production of Coriolanus may contain 40 or more cast members; the Play On Shakespeare version of the show lists 41 speaking characters alone, not including the possibility for an added layer of ensemble members—extra soldiers, nobles, and senators who do not speak at all. However, when this show was originally chosen for upstart crow to perform at the Portland Center Stage earlier in 2024, Joshi was given a major constraint: a cast of only seven actors. She eventually raised this number to eight, but that still left a clear need for double casting, or having a singular actor play multiple different roles. One of the most dynamic double-casting decisions made by Joshi was the pairing of Aufidius and Virgilia, Coriolanus’ wife. In the OSF production, actress Antoinette Robinson plays both the roles throughout the show, and sometimes both simultaneously within the same scene. Double casting is a common theatrical practice, but in most professional productions, actors and creative team members go to great lengths to hide when two characters are played by the same actor. Take for example the casting of Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey as both Grace Poole and Blanche Ingram in Jane Eyre; looking at just costumes alone, the monochrome, sunglass-clad Poole was a different person than luxuriously draped, golden-curled Ingram. However, in Coriolanus, Virgilia was distinguished from Aufidius costumes-wise in just one discernable way: through the removal or addition of a blue skirt over Robinson’s base costume. Though Robinson’s acting was quite distinguishable between her two main characters, the skirt was more of an indication of a switch in character than an attempt to hide the fact that Virgilia and Aufidius were played by the same body in space. This causes an immediate parallel to be drawn between Virgilia and Aufidius—for those less familiar with the show, it might be hard to recount whether it was Coriolanus’ lover or his enemy who said “he’s mine or I am his” (Act I, Scene 10). And it opens the door for synchronicity between Aufidius and Virgilia in space and time. Who really cleaned Coriolanus of the Volscian blood? 

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Secondly, the identity makeup of the cast is relevant in promoting the relationship between Aufidius and Coriolanus. The show exists in a highly masculine sphere where violence, war, and power (which are typically associated with men) drive the story forward. However, the upstart crow collective consists of all women and non-binary performers, and so the dynamic shifts; seeing female bodies yell at an audience, fight each other with knives, and display their muscles in a Shakespeare show can be jarring to frequent patrons of Shakespearean theater. Rami Margron (Brutus) and Vilma Silva (Cominius) gave an example of this concept by telling the story of a fellow cast members’ partner coming to see their production of Coriolanus and feeling unsettled by the gender swap and being taken aback by the traditionally masculine power being represented by feminine bodies onstage. However, in the same way that audiences adapt to Shakespeare’s language, the circumstances of the show are certainly acceptable. In particular, the word “man” and pronoun “he” seem to become more malleable throughout the show until the meaning of the word shifts all together. Upstart crow collective does nothing to mask the femininity of its actors’ presentation, as in women and non-binary people playing men are not expected to cut their hair or lower their voice or wear a beard unless the actor themself feels that that sort of presentation affirms their personal identity. And so from Act I, Scene I when the townspeople say, “You all know Caius Martius / [...] Let’s kill him” and Jessika D. Williams walks out five minutes later, the audience is taught that “him” does not necessarily mean “male.” Immediately this breaks any sense of gender hierarchy present within Shakespeare’s text, because women bodies are not only staying at home waiting for their husbands and sons to return from war, but they are fighting in the wars, campaigning to represent their communities, voting, and protesting—things that an audience would never typically see in Shakespeare. Breaking the hierarchy also means unsubscribing from traditional gender roles and sexual values. Many characters exist somewhere in the space between man and woman, and so especially for an older, more conservative generation of OSF viewers, it becomes more natural to accept two female bodies or two he/him pronoun characters experiencing sexual tension onstage. 

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Additionally, largely because of the small cast, Joshi describes how she directs through a cinematic lens in order to create suspensions of disbelief within the world of the show. Through camera-lens blocking, warm-toned lighting, and a purposeful scrambling of the text, Joshi splices Coriolanus and Aufidius’ worlds together far more tightly than indicated at first glance at the script.

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Joshi mentioned how, when working with a cast of eight actors in a show with mobs, riots, and crowds, she used blocking to “zoom-in” and “zoom-out” of action, and create dynamic images with moving bodies onstage that could make a three people as menacing as a mob of fifteen. This idea of using film editing tactics to amplify the impact of something small onstage is ever so present in the relationship between Coriolanus and Aufidius. In San Jose’s translated script, Act I, Scene 2 on paper is strictly a conversation between Aufidius and one of his senators about Caius Martius’ plan to attack and their plan to invade Rome. However, in the staged OSF version, Caius Martius is placed onstage, talking to his own Roman senator, speaking lines in unison with Aufidius. This mirrors the split screen effect in film, where two different shots of different characters in separate geographic locations are spliced together so that the two characters share the screen at the same time, creating an association between two characters. Onstage, this creates the same effect; a suspension of disbelief occurs, where the audience believes that these two characters who are clearly placed in different locations within the diegetic reality of the show are still operating in unison, and that perhaps they can even sense each others’ presence despite their physical separation. Immediately an understanding is reached by the audience that Martius and Aufidius are a well-matched pair and that they are constantly on each other’s minds. Additionally, not only do they speak in unison, but there is a sense of urgency in their voice when they do so, as if they’re egging each other on. Even in the absence of each other’s physical presence, just the thought of the other lights a fire below them. And when they’re not speaking in unison, oftentimes Joshi has reallocated lines in the text to make Coriolanus and Aufidius’ lines conversational. The audience hangs onto lines like “I sin in envying his nobility” and “my desire doesn’t hold the honor it once had” a little harder when Aufidius and Coriolanus are standing eye-to-eye (Act I, Scene I; Act I, Scene 10). Their comments become less of a complaint and more of a confession when they split the stage. 

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By Act 2, once Caius Martius (now Coriolanus) joins the Volscian army, this theme of unison between him and Aufidius grows stronger. Textually, Aufidius admits “I loved the maid I married / [...] But to see you before me / [...] my heart actually moves / more than when I first saw my bride standing” (Act 4, Scene 5). Onstage, they learn to fight together; they translate their ability to think in sync to be able to move in sync. Not only is the fight rhythmically in unison, but they find perfect balance together. Visually, as they approach Rome, they stand elevated on the set at the same horizontal level, lit the exact same way, splitting center stage equally. Their passionate rivalry translates easily into passionate camaraderie as they verbally confess their love then work together like a well-oiled machine. 

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There is also certainly use of the “zoom-in” effect when the two interact together onstage. In Scene 1, Act 2, as the split screen effect makes it seem like Martius and Aufidius are in conversation, they meet at center stage and turn to face each other. While they’re still speaking to their senators in the world of the play, the actors playing the senators exit, and the lights illuminating the perimeter of the stage dim, highlighting a soft, feathered-edge spotlight on both Martius and Aufidius. This dimming of light is gradual; it’s less of a theatrical spotlight and more of a zoom. It causes the audience to lean forward and pay attention to Martius and Aufidius without clocking that the world around them is fading away until it’s only them. And the remaining light is soft and warm. It places a filter on their world, separating them from the reality of the play whilst creating an illusion of unlikely comfort between two sworn enemies set out to kill each other. 

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Another cinematic element put into play is the malleability of time. When Coriolanus and Aufidius are alone, not only does geography bend, but time slows down. In their physical knife fight in Act I, Scene 8, quick jabs and hardy swings are punctuated by moments of intense eye contact, bright red light, and heavy breathing on top of brief sequences of slow-motion movement. It seems that their fights have moments of intense silent confession, of deep connection and acknowledgement. Red represents violence, but it also represents desire. Heavy breathing is a product of physical exertion but also physical intimacy. In a show with so much malleability and abstraction in movement, it’s easy to find it difficult to draw the line between hatred and yearning. On the subject of abstract movement, another important scene to mention is Coriolanus’ death. Aufidius is the one to sentence him; he calls Coriolanus a traitor and demands that his Volscian constituents kill him with the final line “Shameless villain!” before they slash burlap sacks of red corn to symbolize his spilt blood. What may be even more striking than that, however, is that prior to the cutting of the sacks, Coriolanus and the Volscian ensemble form a moving tableau downstage center as Aufidius speaks. Coriolanus stands grounded, staring straight ahead with a look of horror plastered across his face as the ensemble wraps their arms around him. The most striking element of this scene, however, is the hand placement; the Volscians center their palms only around Coriolanus’ face and neck. This is an established motif between Aufidius and Coriolanus. In their Act I, Scene 8 fight scene, their moments of punctuating slow-motion desire occurred when Aufidius had a strong grip on Martius’ jawline. In the Act I, Scene 7 blood cleaning scene (which was moved to after their Scene 8 fight scene in the OSF production), Aufidious then comes out and uses a rag to wipe Martius’ body, focusing mainly on the neck area. Not only is the neck and jaw area a common erogenous zone, but it’s a highly critical survival area—the neck is how lions go in for the kill, but also how they handle their cubs. In the last scene, the hand placement of the ensemble serves as one final reminder to Coriolanus and to the audience that he has died at the hands of Aufidius. 

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However, on a broader level, the accumulation of all this leads me to wonder: who is this show intended for? As a theater student who read the script beforehand, I understood what was happening in OSF’s Coriolanus and could appreciate the experimental staging and double casting, but I’m still partially left wondering how the play could have been elevated using an abridged version of Shakespeare’s text instead of the Play On Shakespeare translation. But take someone, for example, like the 79-year-old biochemist from San Francisco who sat next to me during my second round of watching the show. By intermission, she thought Virgilia and Aufidius were the same character and had completely lost the plot. She decided to stay, but her group of friends walked out during intermission because, according to her, they were well-versed in Shakespeare enough to be frustrated by the translated version of the show, but not well-versed in Coriolanus enough to understand what was happening. She, herself, was new to Shakespeare. In a promotional video for OSF’s Coriolanus, Play On Shakespeare’s President Lue Douthit describes the translated script as “no-footnote Shakespeare,” or Shakespeare “spoken in a language that people could receive in our conventions and receptions.” Whether or not the text succeeded in being more comprehensible or capturing the heart of the language, this message clashes with the show’s experimental nature. While I personally find that directorial vision aided tremendously in conveying Coriolanus and Aufidius’ relationship dynamic, I can also recognize that, as a first introduction to Coriolanus, this show is tremendously confusing and seems to target a niche demographic of young, unconventional theater enjoyers with a slight background in Shakespearean work. But at the same time, is there any theatrical production that can satisfy everyone? Or perhaps, keeping with upstart crow collective’s mission to provide more roles for underrepresented actors in Shakespeare’s sphere, the show was not meant to please an audience, but to provide for the actors. 

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In any case, Joshi had a strong and distinct vision that added significant emotional dimension to the story. Coriolanus and Aufidius are highly charged with passion due to Joshi’s staging and lighting tactics as well as her casting and costuming choices.