Summer Rep season comes to a close with weekend performance of Shakespeare's Coriolanus

08/08/2024

The Community College of Rhode Island Players’ production of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus begins tonight at the Warwick Campus Bobby Hackett Theatre, marking the end of the college’s sixth Summer Repertory theater season.

Coriolanus premiers at 7:30 pm with additional shows on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and a 2 pm matinee Sunday. Tickets are available online and priced at $5 for students; $10 for employees and seniors; and $20 for general admission. (Photo gallery)

Directed by Audra Lavin Crawley, a longtime theatre performer and educator who starred in the Players’ Summer Rep performance of Much Ado About Nothing in July, Coriolanus is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus. Believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608, Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s last two tragedies written alongside Antony and Cleopatra.

Backed by an ensemble cast and a minimalist set – in fact, Crawley says, there is no set – the Players’ adaptation of Coriolanus focuses on the themes of political power, pride, and loyalty as the title character is often at odds with the common people and their representatives in the government amidst the power struggle in ancient Rome. When Coriolanus is banished from Rome and seeks revenge by leading a military campaign against the city, he finds himself facing his own downfall. The play has been praised for its complex characters and its depiction of the struggles between the ruling class and the working class.

“Coriolanus paints a community in crisis,” said Crawley, also an ensemble member at OUT LOUD Theatre, and a board member for What Fray Was Here?: Social Justice Shakespeare. “While it's a difficult text to read or study, it is, as is the case with most of Shakespeare’s works, meant to be seen – and, in my opinion, to be experienced. At the heart of this particular text is a story with a strikingly modern sensibility. Matters of love, hate, admiration, jealousy, trust, and betrayal take center stage.

“There’s a whole range of varying political convictions. Each individual character – of which there are many! – carry equal weight in the triumphs and the downfalls that this community endures, and at the center of this polis is an anti-hero, a tragic protagonist, whose square peg simply cannot, and, in the eyes of the people, must not, fit into the round, circular shape that makes up the norm of this setting. This production takes no sides, and we embrace that many in the ensemble play characters from either side of the waring city states. We want the audience to lean into the story and the movement that they see and hear from our ensemble.”

Actor, writer, and director Sarah Elizabeth Taylor (North Providence, RI) – a Summer Rep veteran and Creative Director at East End Theatre and Performing Arts, stars as Coriolanus. The cast also includes Ryan Alexander as Brutus, a Roman senator and a key figure in the political turmoil depicted in the play; Sophie Bryant as Valeria, a noblewoman from Rome; Shelby Cray (Bristol, RI) as Menenius, a Roman patrician and surrogate father figure to Coriolanus; Hayley Wood as Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother; and Val Salvador as Virgilia, Corolianus’ wife. Ensemble cast members include Elissa Parente (Cranston, RI) and Elliot Gosselin (Harrisville, RI). With no set and a strong emphasis on character development, cast members are particularly grateful for the ensemble that helps prevent such performances from being “two-dimensional,” according to Stage Manager Gabriella Seal.

“During the building and run of a show, so much time is spent with your cast that quickly your scene partners become your friends – almost instantly,” Taylor said.

“They are the people that get you through the long, hard day, the people you share all your laughs with, and oftentimes the most down to earth, thoughtful people you will meet. No two shows are ever alike; as I always say, ‘You will never do this show again with these same people.’ This is what makes theatre so special.”

“‘Ensemble’ comes from the Latin word ‘insimul,’ meaning ‘in company, together, at the same time.’ As a one-man meritocrat for much of the play, Coriolanus would have hated this – and therein lies his tragic flaw, for no human can function alone,” said Rosa Nguyen (West Warwick, RI), who stars as Tullus Aufidius, Coriolanus’ archenemy. “Love is strength. At its best, each bond we make should bolster the individual, forming a unit more powerful than its individual parts. Like cells in a body or atoms in a molecule, we have gathered in this space and time to tell a remarkable story, and I am thankful to be part of this many-headed, multi-talented team.”

This weekend’s show is also a fundraiser for the theater students’ annual trip to the Region 1 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), which honors excellence of overall production and offers student artists individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing, and design. Students are selected to compete in the KCACTF based on nominations stemming for their performances during the calendar year.

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