Coriolanus (Red Bull Theater) by William Shakespeare

Can there be any better Shakespeare play for an election year than Coriolanus? 

Coriolanus is Shakespeare’s tragic story of a brilliant soldier Caius Martius (Coriolanus) who, though temperamentally unsuited to it, with the encouragement of his friends, admirers and very domineering mother tries his hand at politics.  Having been raised and forged to respect and exhibit only brute force, he, ultimately unwilling to play by the rules and the will of the people he is to govern, is banished.

In banishment Coriolanus seeks partnership with his old enemy, Tullus Aufidius and begins to wage a brutal campaign of destructive vengeance against Rome.  Several of his staunchest supporters/friends visit him to beg him to cease but only his iron-willed mother prevails.  Her victory, unfortunately, is Coriolanus’ end as his new-forged allies take his life.

There isn’t a weak link in the chain of this extraordinary cast!  Dion Johnstone is mesmerizing as Caius Martius Coriolanus and playing the slick, stylishly Southern, Senator, Menenius Agrippa, Patrick Page shows the same charismatic energy that made his Hades in Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown something that I couldn’t see enough times.

Human nature never changes and the reason for the relevance of all things ‘Will’ is that, as my friend, Annie, always says, “Shakespeare gets there first”.