National Theatre Live! Coriolanus

On the 30th January 2014 Sarah and I went once again to the Vue cinema in Hartlepool to see Coriolanus featuring Mark Gatiss and Tom Hiddleston. The production was set in the Donmar Warehouse which originally was built as a Hops Warehouse, in the 1920s it was used as a Film Studio before it was then bought by Donald Albery, who was a Theatre Producer, who formed Donmar Productions in 1959, in 1961. The Royal Shakespeare Company bought it in 1977 from Albery’s son Ian Albery who had transformed it into a private recording studio. When the Royal Shakespeare Company bought the Warehouse they renamed it ‘The Warehouse’ and it became the theatre we know today. However it wasn’t until the 1990s that it finally became known as ‘The Donmar Warehouse’ and this was because of the efforts of Roger Wingate.

The Donmar Warehouse is one of the most known theatres in London even though it has limited seating of up to 250 seats. However because of it limited and intimate seating the Donmar shows normally sell out almost immediately especially when most of the productions they produce are top of the line with well know actors/actresses taking a role in them. In December – February 2013 the Donmar Warehouse is producing a production of Coriolanus which has many big names taken part such as Mark Gatiss, who has been in the BBCs adaptation of Sherlock though he is more well-known for his role as a writer for Doctor Who, also Tom Hiddleston is to star as the main character, known for his role as Loki from Thor and The Avengers as well as The Hollow Crown in which he plays Henry V/Prince Hal.

The set they used was very minimalistic and stripped to the bone with the top half of the back wall painted white while the bottom was painted red, the set designer researched in to early roman buildings as this was when the play was set the only other feature to the actual set was a ladder that was placed near the back wall but was still a potent feature. While the designers wanted to keep the element of the Early Roman society they also wanted to make it modern which came through with the ladder which they developed from looking into freedom speech images the modernism also came through in the costume side of the production as well, as the top half of the male costumes especially the soldiers had their armour chest plate while the bottom half of the costume was just plain skin tight Jeans.

Overall I found that the whole production was beautiful and amazing for such a minimalistic set with just a couple of chairs for props.

http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/ntlout5-coriolanus