So Coriolanus is about a soldier, an incredibly
impressive soldier who has been fighting since
he was a young man. In fact it’s almost
better to think of him as a famous athlete
who’s come back with 15 gold medals, or
someone with the fame of a rock star. This
is the kind of guy who runs into building
by himself and slaughters everyone in sight,
just to defend his people. His physical power
and his ability has caused him to become a
celebrity. But the same people who love him
for being their soldier, hate him because
he doesn’t love them equally. He doesn’t
have a great deal of respect for the people.
He’ll die for them but he doesn’t want
to be polite to them. He goes off really early
on and has to fight a war on behalf of Rome,
and he comes back from this war fantastically
successful and even more renowned. But he’s
got this mother who is incredibly influential
over him and she very much wants him to be
Consul which is like being Prime Minister,
so he is persuaded to run for Consul on the
back of his celebrity as a soldier. He does
this completely against his will as he has
a completely low tolerance for the common
person. That said, they still vote him in
on the basis of his war hero status, and the
deeds that he has done for Rome. However,
we have a couple of testy Tribunes who are
newly elected to be the voice of the people.
So these tribunes, working the best interests
of the people but also in a quite manipulative
manner in order to protect and increase their
own power work against Coriolanus and the
people renege on their vote. So Coriolanus
flies into a fury, he is totally embarrassed,
and he is asked to go and apologise to the
people which he absolutely can’t do, and
this leads to the people of Rome rising up
against him. Now what he does next – I think
you have to come and see the play to find
out. Democracy doesn’t always produce the
best results for people, so I think the idea
of being not represented by a system of direct
voting is quite interesting for a lot of people.
