Word: aufidius
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...smaller parts, Ronald Hunter as Hector and Louis Plante as Ajax were excellent, attempting successfully to take characters whom audiences associate with moral and physical arche-types and make them something quite different. Arthur Friedman didn't look a day older than he did playing Aufidius in a recent Loeb Coriolanus and consequently didn't convince me he was senile old Nestor for a minute...
Babe's direction too succumbs largely to instinct and caprice; snatches of Brecht emerge now and then--in the cards which identify each setting, in the make-up on the plebeians, and in the declarative style in which Aufidius's servingmen proclaim the virtues of war over peace to the audience. But the production doesn't have much to do with Brecht and Babe just injects the touches at will...
...wonderful section where we see (on film) two plebeians reading a newspaper transcript of Coriolanus's "I banish you!" speech, Babe carefully avoids the trap of showing masses influenced by media. The film clips, evenly spaced throughout, never interrupt the action. The technique works best in the scene between Aufidius and his Lieutenant. Babe plays only half the scene on stage, the second half on the film soundtrack: the stage blacks-out and we watch Coriolanus of film, still listening to Aufidius talk about him. Alfred Guzetti's camerawork on these clips is, in context, superb. Following the Peter Brook...