- Coriolanus, and; King Lear, and; Twelfth Night
The forty-sixth season of the Utah Shakespearean Festival's summer season featured Coriolanus, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. The Festival also presented a selection of plays and musicals not authored by Shakespeare. This year's non-Shakespearean productions included the premiere of Lend Me a Tenor: The Musical, The Matchmaker, and Candida which are not reviewed here. Outstanding performances and production values marked Coriolanus, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. Although diverse as to genre and storyline, these three plays shared at their core the theme of love. In Coriolanus, the titular character's love for the martial surpassed nearly all else. King Lear featured filial and paternal love at the center of its tragedy. Finally, Twelfth Night celebrated the transformative nature of romantic love.
Coriolanus, one of Shakespeare's less frequently produced plays, proved a timely choice given the current rancorous political situation in this country. Despite its strong political undercurrent, this production of Coriolanus emerged as a character study of one man's love for soldiery and warfare. James Newcomb gave an expert performance in the lead role. His Coriolanus swaggered, boasted, and laughed while amongst his fellow soldiers and his body language spoke of a man completely at ease in his role as a soldier far removed from the peasantry. Once forced to wear sackcloth and plead for the "voices" of the common people, Newcomb's Coriolanus visibly changed, his contempt for being the focus of such spectacle was palpable as he struggled to maintain his composure. However, Newcomb never allowed his performance to cross into caricature, a risk with a character so bold in emotion and deed as Coriolanus. Coriolanus's separation from the common citizenry was further illustrated through the color palette of the costumes. Where the citizens were clad in pale [End Page 107] or pastel hues, Volumnia in royal purple, Virgilia in pink, and Aufidius in tan, Coriolanus through most of the play wore black and white, with the striking addition of a red cape as he returned triumphant from the campaign against Corioles.
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