Mature O.U.D.S. Production

of Coriolanus

Coriolanus ...... PATRICK GARLAND Tullus Aufidius .... ROGER CROUCHER Menenius Agrippa GEOFFREY TETLOW Sicinius Velutus .. PETER STANSFIELD Junius Brutus .. DAVID VERE-JONES

Cominius ........ JOHN BINFIELD Titus Lartius ...... KEVIN PHILLIPS Volumnia ........ SusAN ENGEL Virgilia ........ APRIL BRUNNER Valeria ........ VYVIAN ARTHIIR

Produced by ANTHONY PAGE

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

OXFORD, MARCH 2

Something cool, detached, and mature about the O.U.D.S.'s Coriolanus at the Oxford Playhouse suggests that the understanding between the cast of 70, the director, Mr. Anthony Page, and the designer of the permanent set, Mr. Sean Kenny, has been close.

The impression of unity of style is, of course, creditable. If the performance had had the effect of offsetting the qualities of the play and making them stand out clearly, the result might well have been excellent. But Coriolanus seemed not very responsive to such treatment. At this well thought out party given in its honour the play-the principal guest-stayed in the background and on occasions slipped away.

One might have thought that this dryness, in the good sense of the word, would have brought out a fine flavour of comedy in the manoeuvring, selfish on both parts, of patricians and tribunes of the people in Shakespeare's Rome. Yet flavour was exactlv what many scenes lacked. The crowd was well led by Mr. Michael Barnes (Keble); there was splendid Jacobin humour in his mimicking of the dignified stalk with which Coriolanus had left the stage in order to go into banishment. But

it remained a ghostly crowd, a crowd merely of voices, at its best in the sudden whispers of fear at the news of Coriolanus's return with an invading army.

Old Menenius, though Mr. Geoffrey Tetlow's sketch of him was quietly assured, lacked geniality. Consequently his rejection on pleading like a father with Coriolanus in the Volscian camp had nothing sad about it. As for the two tribunes, real enough though they were, it was difficult for us to take sides either with or against them. On the other hand Aufidius (Mr. Roger Croucher) was certainly a creature of flesh and blood, so was Virgilia (Miss April Brunner) and so, on the comedy plane. were Aufidius's three servants who witness the reconciliation between the two old enemies at Antium.

The Coriolanus, Mr. Patrick Garland, was alive in every scene, a man who saw nothing inconsistent in his behaviour and felt himself to be iustified in everything he did. It was entirely credible and consistent. Miss Susan Engel, the only professional player, made the sudden vigour of Volumnia's pleading in the tent scene seem characteristic of the woman, even though we had had no hint of this side of ber character at an earlier stage. Everything in the play made sense, yet it hardly seemed directly important to ourselves except on the political level.