The Problem With An Etonian Coriolanus

Having seen Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus now, I am still of the opinion that while talented and an excellent verse speaker, Hiddleston lacks the electric abilities of a Whishaw or Scott to totally transcend himself on stage. He is probably much more suited to the bombastic kind of role he had in Thor than anything too subtle, and more power to him. He can't do much to alter his very smooth and Etonian voice, much as it might make the tumblr brigade swoon. Partly the problem is that he is too posh to play Coriolanus, although this made me realise a more fundamental issue with that play's performance today.

Coriolanus is by nature an actual, physical bruiser, who glories in being covered in blood and viscera during his battles. Basically, we don't believe this of the tall, willowy, Adonian Hiddleston. He's beefed up for the role, sure, but there's not much he can do to convince us that he's spent his professional life carving up other human beings with sharp objects - bulging pectorals are no substitute for dead eyes, an oft-broken nose, and the sense of barely repressed violence lurking under the public face. A shaven-headed Ralph Fiennes from the film version fits this image far better - you only need see him in In Bruges to know how well he can convince you he might be about to cave your face in at any moment. Yet the bruiser interpretation of Coriolanus doesn't work either, because of his snobbery. It's almost impossible now to recapture the aristocratic hatred of the plebs that might have seemed more relatable in 1608, but it is much harder to do it when you cast Coriolanus with a more stereotypically working class accent as we might attribute to a modern squaddie. 

Hiddleston's dislike of the plebs was well captured in his cut glass voice. My thought at the time was that it would have worked far better in a WWI setting: have Hiddleston as the kind of officer-class Edwardian warrior, both loving to get stuck in himself and contemptuous of the rank and file when they failed to be as enthusiastic as him. Indeed this production did a good job of highlighting Coriolanus' sense of betrayal at the cowardice of his fellows at Corioles - hinting that this was the source of his hatred of the common folk. Indeed, outside this very narrow framework we have little cultural understanding of aristocrats who like to fight themself while hating the rank and file. Today violence and wealth are very much at arms' length when there's always a Blackwater mercenary or two to contract out to while keeping a smooth public face. So Coriolanus is going to remain a problem play for the time being, and Hiddleston is going to have to find more effete Shakespearean roles if he wants to convince. Benedick or Edmund are surely more to his taste.