Hazem Shammas is the titular Coriolanus in Shakespeare’s examination of tyranny, democracy and the human condition in proximity to power playing at Arts Centre Melbourne from July 24.
What Gordon Zeeveld aptly called a “gaunt, granite-like play”, Coriolanus is Shakespeare’s brutal politically-driven tragedy published within the same period as Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
Following his stint as the Scottish tyrant, Hazem Shammas is trading his tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow for the blunt and brutal warrior Caius Martius Coriolanus.
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Shakespeare’s fourth theatrical return to Rome was inspired by Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives in the late 1570’s. This text was the Love-Island of the Renaissance: the feuds, passions and tales of Ancient Rome were pop-culture and Shakespeare capitalised on it, placing the lives of what Hazem calls “demigod-like” characters on the stage and dramatizing their lives, manipulating history into “mythic fables”.
Whether at the Globe in the seventeenth century, Berlin in the 90’s, or a modern audience watching an amalgamation of both (as I was when I saw the show in Sydney), there are parallels to be drawn in every scene as Coriolanus tumbles from great warrior to exile.
“It’s a pretty simple story, but it barrels along so dynamically. It’s bloody great.”
Peter Evans’ version of Coriolanus sets itself in a post-wall Berlin, sometime in the 90’s. While this creative decision offers some political and social context for those approaching the text for the first time, Hazem states that Peter’s choice “grounds the timeless play in a specific era as a starting point”. The audience is divided into two factions: the plebians and the patricians, on either side of the action. Through all these choices, Peter Evans curates an environment in which the audience cannot escape involvement in the political ecosystem in front of them. It’s an effective commentary on our world today. Shakespeare’s politics and religion have always been fervently debated by critics and scholars, but what Coriolanus highlights to us is that life itself is innately political.
For Hazem, his Palestinian identity is inextricable from his work as an actor. In a world saturated with images of violence, stepping into the boots of a brutal antagonist is more accessible to him and has (perhaps, sadly) not presented a challenge.
“No one has had the conversation with me about it. I am a Palestinian as much as I am an actor. To play this kind of monster has actually been quite easy, as I represent a people who are on the receiving end of a monstrosity. It has been quite simple for me to make that connection in terms of Coriolanus’ speech, the kinds of ethnic cleansing, genocidal instincts he has for a people that are below him. The state of Israel has been doing this to my people for the last 100 years. To play that kind of monster is very current and very simple for me to reference.”
“Theatre is putting up these mirrors constantly and humanity keeps disappointing us in such disastrous ways. Yet we sit back and pretend it’s not happening, consuming our comforts like they are unending and deserving at the cost of so much – not just people, but our planet.”
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Perhaps that’s the power of theatre and a reason why companies like Bell Shakespeare continue to present the Bard’s works. His plays capture a timeless and sometimes ruthlessly honest depiction of the human condition to allow us, the audience, an opportunity for introspection.
Yet we attend the theatre for entertainment and return home to our televisions and social media, forgetting the sociopolitical power of the theatre experience through the actor-audience relationship. Coriolanus does not let you off the hook.
“The things he talks about are brutal and bloody. In this day and age, we turn on the media and consume the stories we see, humanity’s capacity for monstrous acts is pretty easy at the moment. That is the timeliness of this play – here we are, holding up another mirror. I wonder if the message ever gets across.”
Coriolanus is playing at the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne from July 24 to August 10.
