Coriolanus at the Kennedy Center

So we went to see Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Kennedy Center (but in the Eisenhower Theater) last night. I'd actually never been to the Kennedy Center before, believe it or not, so it was quite an outing. First of all, let me just say that the Kennedy Center is really not that close to anything. But that aside, it really is a beautiful building, and although I'd scene pictures of the bust of JFK, I'd never realized that it was that big. It should be called "the giant bust of JFK."

Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with Coriolanus, and I'm betting that that's most everyone, it's a tragedy about a Roman patrician really good at war but really bad at politics--sort of an inverse Karl Rove?--who wins a major battle but then gets himself banished when he finds it impossible to stoop to ask the (fickle) common people for their votes. Once banished, he joins forces with Rome's rival at the time (the Volscians?) to get revenge on Rome. But it turns out that old Coriolanus has a weakness--he can't say no to his mother. So when his mother entreats him not to destroy Rome, he relents, breaking his oath with the Volscians. The Volscians, or at least some of them, then kill him, but then, in a sudden reversal, mourn having done so.

There are those, myself included, who think that this is Shakespeare's most political play, although having read it now a couple times and seen it once, I'm not sure if it has a political message. Other than, "the common people are fickle and easily misled by demagogues." Maybe it is the perfect play for our times.

Last week, btw, we saw Titus Andronicus at the Shakespeare Theater. Now that play is a real hoot. In the final scene, the "tragic hero" actually serves up a human-head pie to his enemies. The debate over Titus is whether it is meant seriously, as the apotheosis of the revenge tragedy form, at least pre-Charles Bronson--or whether it's a "spoof" of the genre, or at least intended to be seen as such by some. The latter interp is Harold Bloom's, and I usually like Bloom's readings, but I'm not sure.