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Siskoid
The National Theatre Live presentation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus has Tom Hiddleston getting really dirty in the lead role - the staging includes blood, paint, water, dirt, and ripe tomatoes - a human sword, always direct and to the point, eschewing hypocrisy and pageantry to his own detriment. Coriolanus is, as the play's poster intimates, all heart, by which no kindness should be inferred, but rather that he acts on the moment, never lies, speaks his thought... that heart is on his sleeve, and at the end of that sleeve, a hand with a blade in it. He is a great war hero who resents the hungry mouths of Rome for only contributing in the negative, and a paltry politician because he's incapable of hiding his feelings on the matter. He is quite simply a soldier to the core and has no role to play in times of peace, so much so that his own declaration of peace late in the play completely undoes him. With all the war stuff, I thought for sure the play would use the National Theatre's huge spinning stage, but no, it's all done on a small, grungy stage, a lot of the action within a rectangle drawn in blood. The battles are well-realized with lighting and pyrotechnics, and the fight choreography immediate and realistic (the direction for the filming is generally excellent). Hiddleston does a great job with one of the Bard's most ambiguous and underwritten leads, as do Mark Gatiss as his witty father figure, Deborah Findlay as his creepy domineering mother, and Hadley Fraser as his homoerotically-charged nemesis. Billy Piper lookalike Birgitte Hjort Sørensen made me want to see more of Virgilia (a small triumph) and the Tribunes are actually well drawn as ruthless political maneuverers, the true opposites of Corolanius. This is a passionate, violent, at times rancidly funny, incredibly topical interpretation of the play, though I do think the ending is a little abrupt thanks to a crucial cut. A small stumble right at the finish line, but it probably won't bother audiences who don't know the play.