Coriolanus Press Night (2013)

December 17, 2013: 

The cast of Donmar Warehouse's Coriolanus hosted a press night after party at The Hospital Club in London. Coriolanus is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare and directed by Josie Rourke. Tom Hiddleston starred in the title role. 

Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (Virgilia), Tom,  Mark Gatiss (Menenius), Hadley Fraser (Aufidius), and Josie Rourke (Director). 

Coriolanus and his family:  Deborah Findlay (Coriolanus' mother Volumnia), Tom, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (his wife Virgilia), and Joe Willis and Tom Harrison (who combine to play the role of Coriolanus' son Young Martius)

Tom and Hadley Fraser. In the play Hadley portrays Aufidius, the leader of the Volscian army and Rome and Coriolanus’s greatest enemy. 

You can watch the trailer for Coriolanus below. 

When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city falls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But famine threatens the city, the citizens' hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people. 

A Press Night is when critics and press are invited to review a show. And the critics were not disappointed with Coriolanus. Some of the reviews: 

• "[The play] elicits a central performance of blazing stellar power and intelligence from Tom Hiddleston... A strapping hawk-like figure, Hiddleston exudes the arrogance and dangerous charisma of one of nature's cruel head-prefects.  But he also hauntingly hints at the terrible isolation of this hero who has been emotionally stunted and turned into a killing machine by his ambitious domineering mother. This is in no way a sentimentalised portrayal. Hiddleston‘s magnificent performance compels you to feel what an awful fate it is to be Coriolanus. ” - The Independent
• "[Tom Hiddleston] does an impressive job of suggesting the emotional inadequacy of this self-deluding, impulsive loner – as well as the strange complexity of his motives." - Evening Standard
• "Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus is a lean, mean killing machine with crippled emotions in this exciting and intense production." - The Telegraph

One of the key credits of the production was the intimacy of the staging. The Donmar Warehouse is a very small theatre with a maximum seating capacity of 250. 

Fashion: 

Tom Hiddleston wore a navy, checked suit from Armani. In a nice call back Tom also wore this same suit to the 2015 WhatsOnStage Awards where Coriolanus won the Best Play Revival, Best Supporting Actor in A Play (Mark Gatiss), and Best Lighting Design (Mark Henderson). 

Credits:

GettyImages
Donmar Warehouse
Tom-Hiddleston.com