Shakespeare for a 21st Century audience - it really packs a punch

Rating: 9/10 (11 March 2012)

I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison thinking of the key, each confirms a prison Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
That's TS Eliot at the culmination of the Wasteland.
After years of wondering what "broken Coriolanus" meant, I am still none the wiser.
But this fabulous updating of the context of Coriolanus has at least given me some possible explanations.
The replanting of the action to a mid -European civil war setting allows the viewer to concentrate on what Shakespeare was trying to say. I find traditional versions that endeavor to recreate what it might have looked like at the Globe Theatre four hundred years ago distract me in the quest to come to terms with the central ideas. Using television news shows rather than town criers and anglo versions of a Greek chorus allow me to immerse myself in the narrative.
And the narrative is compelling. The Roman senators re-imagined as sleazy, poll reading, PR spin purveying, party machine men might have stepped out of a news - current affairs TV show. They are instantly recognisable. (Dare I say that Australians may see parallels with their own Labor politicians who would rather retain a nuts and bolts, get things done, transactional leader they liked working with than re-instate a transformative, if somewhat arrogant and aloof, former leader?)
I find clock watching tends to beset me in most Shakespearian productions. This one had me engrossed, occasionally laughing out loud at some of the depictions of recognizable human weakness and folly. Everyone involved in this film - writers, actors, director - everyone - deserves credit for that
And then there is that wise and knowing, yet disappointing culmination. Do the right thing, swallow your pride, seek greatness of spirit and human mercy, and if one pack of bastards don't get you, the others will.
And the relevance of TS Eliot's Waste Land quote? If you have seen the film or play, "Tom and Viv", you will know that one possible interpretation of the poem is a surrealistic re-telling of the poet's disastrous marriage and its breakdown. Maybe Eliot saw himself as Coriolanus, exiled by those he sought to defend, knifed by those he delivered from tyranny, taking his last breaths. It's the never-ending story. Just read the background to Dante's "Divine Comedy"