ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of the audience in Coriolan/us, directed by Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes for National Theatre Wales as part of the World Shakespeare Festival and 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Beginning with an examination of how Shakespeare’s play reflects the public and the political in relation to performance and theatre, the particular approach of the production project is outlined: to explore the political impact of Coriolanus today, almost 60 years after Bertolt Brecht’s attempt to redefine the role of the people and the audience in an epic reading of this play. Integrating some interview and other material from Pearson and Brookes, the essay analyses the performance as a practice-based research investigation into the relational process that enables the spectators to experience their ‘being singular/plural’ (Jean- Luc Nancy)—co-constituted in relation to others. By examining the organization and deployment of space, speech and screen technologies in Coriolan/us, the essay seeks to interrogate the performance as a theatrical experiment which challenges the idea of the public sphere (as a place of discourse and political subjectivation) between crowd, audience and individual positions.
