Word: menenius
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Coriolanus' life is complicated further by the play's one serious alteration of the original text. Menenius (Dana Gotlieb '97), intended by Shakespeare to be Coriolanus' male friend, was here depicted as his female lover. Gotlieb does well with the role, but the change seems unnecessary...
Characterization is equally inconsistent. Stephen Kaplan's truly fascinating Menenius at times conveys Polonius-like age, at times wisdom, then steps out of character suggesting a Hollywood agent who has lot his client, then a deeply jealous suitor disappointed at Volumnia's success over his own failure...
Equally interesting, if not always as successful, is Babe's substitution of a loudspeaker for the proverbial Shakespearian messenger: when a panicstricken Rome first hears that Coriolanus may be allied with the Volscians, Babe stages a fast dialogue between Menenius, the tribunes, and the loud speaker, eerie in the momentary illusion that the loud speaker is quite conscious of what the other three are saying. The use of film and speaker projection proves Babe's most successful instinct in Coriolanus and the device most fully resolved; the harrowing ending is played simultaneously on stage and film; Babe requires a dual...
Coriolanus: " . . .The fable is of oriental origin. It made its way somehow into Roman history of the legendary period and is attached to Menenius by Livy and Plutarch. Camden tells it in his "Remaines" (1605). Of course Shakespeare could read Livy...
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