Coriolanus and Science Fiction

[00:00:00]So, why is the sci-fi mountain nerd talking about Shakespeare? You might be wondering. Coral Elenus written sometime in the first decade of the 17th century and set in the very early days of the Roman Republic based on historical events, but with Shakespeare's usual level of artistic license, is generally performed in a Roman setting, but has not escaped being reset in other periods. When I first saw it performed in the mid or late 90s, it was done with a 1930s fascist bent. This was around the same time as the Ian Mckel and Richard III film. Bit of a trend at the time. During the last decade, Cory Elanus got the modern-day treatment. The two examples I'm most familiar with are the 2011 film with Ray Fines and in 2018, the Stratford Festival presented one of the most impressive stage productions I've ever seen, directed by Robert Leage. What you're seeing isn't added in post. The moving panels and all were live like a graphic novel on stage.

[00:00:57]Some things from the original play work just fine in a setting with modern weapons and mass media, and others don't translate so well. But for a long time, I've toyed with giving it a science fiction treatment. Not in the sense of it's just the play, but with lasers, but rather the story as a starting point and playing with how the character changes in relation to the setting. One of the basic questions it runs into is, are we individuals motivated by reason and ideals, or are we really just bound by blood, expressions of the tribe?

[00:01:29]Science fiction plays with these questions, often through finding common ground with the alien or alternately having to fight them to the death. But a sci-fi spin on this story lets us look at the fuzzy lines of our loyalties and motivations. In any case, it's the story of Kais Marshas, a soldier whose post-war political career is dashed because he's too honest. Of course, he has numerous faults. All of them laid bare throughout the story, but his core weakness is that he can't play the game.

[00:02:01]He can't misrepresent himself. He holds the common people in low regard, but he doesn't lie to them, which is a damn sight more than can be said of most politicians. Therefore, for Coral Elena, neither to care whether they love or hate him manifest the true knowledge he has in their disposition.

[00:02:19]>> After returning from a great victory over an old enemy of Rome, the Vulian army led by his nemesis Afidious.

[00:02:26]>> He is a lion that I am proud to hunt.

[00:02:29]>> He's a war hero with laurels and the honorific Corolanus given in recognition of his taking the city of Corales. The ruling class, represented most directly by Maninius, want to install Marsh as consul.

[00:02:42]But he does not want the job.

[00:02:44]>> Good mother, I'd rather be their servant in my way than sway with them in theirs.

[00:02:49]>> However, his backers in the establishment, the military, and his mother really push it, so he tries to play along and would have taken up the role as chief defender of Rome were it not for the tribunes.

[00:03:02]In theory, they are the representatives of the common people.

[00:03:06]Stop me if you've heard this one. They are tasked with making sure that the Senate takes the commoner's needs and interests into account, but the interest they serve above all are their own.

[00:03:16]>> It must fall out to him or our authorities for an end. We must suggest the people in what hatred he still holds. This as you say suggested at some time when his soaring insulence shall touch the people will be his fire to kindle their dry stubble and their blaze shall darken him forever.

[00:03:36]>> They may have come from the lower classes but they no longer have anything in common with them. They've attained a privileged position and want to maintain it. We've all seen this. We've all almost certainly voted for them once or twice. Oh, let's be honest. It's practically every time if you vote D or R. So when Marcus out in the public forum to get the consent of the people refuses to submit to the ritual of showing his wounds acquired in service to Rome, a refusal out of a combination of modesty and disdain for the tradition, not an attempt to embellish or misrepresent his service. There is no stolen valor from Marsh. The dude's legit. But that break with procedure gives the tribunes an inn. Yes, the people gave him their voices, but the tribunes think they voted wrong.

[00:04:23]>> Get you hens instantly and tell those friends. They've chose a consul that will from them take their liberties.

[00:04:28]>> Let them assemble and on a safer judgment all revoke your ignorant election.

[00:04:32]>> And a web of intrigue and political maneuvering follows.

[00:04:35]>> And in the power of us, the tribunes, we even from this instant banish him our city, >> leading to Marsh losing his [ __ ] and getting exiled. I BANISH YOU.

[00:04:50]>> There is a world elsewhere.

[00:04:53]That's the line that got me thinking in a science fiction direction way back when I first saw this on stage. Because what follows isn't just a story of retribution, but one of a clash of cultures, of a man caught between two worlds, unable to be fully part of either. It's notable that Marsh doesn't have much in the way of personal desires. He's not after power or wealth.

[00:05:17]>> Of all the treasure in this FIELD ACHIEVED AND CITY, WE RENDER YOU THE 10TH.

[00:05:22]>> THANK YOU, GENERAL, but I cannot make my heart consent to take a bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it and stand upon my common part with those that have beheld the duty.

[00:05:34]>> He shuns a claim.

[00:05:38]>> No more of this. Just offend my heart.

[00:05:41]Pray now. No more. He just wants to fight Rome's enemies. This is a man whose identity is wrapped up in his nation. All his life he's been preparing for or in service to Rome.

[00:05:54]The idea of Rome, most of the actual people he finds to be rather distasteful. He serves the mythic essence of Rome, not so much the actual city full of people. And now Rome has cast him out, sent him wandering alone in foreign lands. In most stage productions, it's just the farewell scene. In the two productions I'm using for reference here, it's a drawn out montage, but what comes to my mind is a monthsl long trip deeper into foreign territory through the zone of cultural diffusion and into the truly alien.

[00:06:26]This was done well in Barry Longear's Enemy Mind, the nolla, not the movie, with the human fighter pilot Willis Davage having to take a series of passenger ships to Draone, with him being the only human on the ship for the final leg, drawing the scorn of everyone around him. a gradual immersion in an alien culture. That's how I see the start of Marsha's exile. As he travels further from his home or home world, as the case may be, slowly being enveloped in a foreign culture that he can never really be part of, he sets himself apart just by being what he is.

[00:07:00]Or we could take a Star Trek approach.

[00:07:02]Imagine a Ramulan general making his way to the Klingan home world intent on helping them defeat his own people to show his treacherous countrymen what for. However it's done, putting it in this setting, extraterrestrials rather than a neighboring citystate, allows the level of foreigness to be adjusted to play with different outcomes.

[00:07:21]And it solves a minor problem that emerges in these modern setting adaptations.

[00:07:26]>> What's thy name? Prepare thy brow to frown?

[00:07:30]>> Know thou me yet? I know thee not.

[00:07:33]>> You can get away with that in a Roman Republic period piece. But when you introduce mass media to the story, the scene always plays a little bit like a wink to the audience. I didn't recognize you in Muy. Just play along. But if he's someplace where he's just dismissed as some grungy outworlder, then they just want him to go away.

[00:07:53]And it also helps with a scene that tends to get a bit mangled these days.

[00:07:58]Both Marshas and Aphidious have their own motives when they join together against Rome. For Marsh, it's to get revenge on those who cast him out, or even that he just needs to be fighting in the service of something. He needs an army. And it just so happens that his old nemesis has one that needs help defeating the Romans. It's an alliance in the most basic sense. Two people that aren't friends, but who work together because they share a single common interest. At the moment they have an exchange with Marcus explaining why he has come and then Aidious responding in gratitude, respect and hope for what lies ahead.

[00:08:33]>> LET ME TWINE MINE ARMS ABOUT THAT BODY WHERE AGAINST MY GRAIN ASH AND HUND TIMES I'm broke and scarred the moon with splinters >> and they bro hug brothers in arms now but many times I've seen it played with another layer added to it deriving from a modern reading of the dialogue. nor thou first. I loved the maid I married.

[00:08:57]Never man's side true a breath, but that I see thee here, THOU NOBLE THING. MORE DANCES MY RACKED HEART THAN WHEN I FIRST MY WED MISTRESS SAW BRIBE MY THRESHOLD.

[00:09:11]>> Show this play to high schoolers and they all go to the same place with it.

[00:09:14]Gay.

[00:09:16]The 2011 film here plays it straight, but I've seen it played everywhere from mild homoerotic subtext to full-on man crush infatuation, which hey, how you bone is none of my concern, but I do think that trying to go that direction with this scene gets in the way of what's really happening here. It's them seeing in each other the means to achieve their highest ambition, and it's a recognition of kinship in a very deep level, one that their own peoples can't fully grasp. Only they can really understand each other. Marshius, the great champion of Rome, has more in common with Alphidius, his archeneemy, than with the vast majority of Romans.

[00:09:54]It's one of the great truths of politics. National leaders are more like each other than like the people they govern. But in this case, as in most, both are extending an apparent hand of friendship for their own ends. Marshius gets an army and Aidius, who has spent his adult life as second best, always losing to Marshius at every encounter, seizes the chance to at last be the best, to defeat both Rome and Marsh by using him as the instrument of his victory. Aidius is in love with the idea of being Marsh, not being with him. He knows he's second best on the battlefield. Five times, Marcus, I have fought with thee. So often hast thou beat me, and would do so, I think, should we encounter as often as we eat.

[00:10:41]>> While Marshius gives him backhanded praise, >> and were I anything but what I am, I would wish me only he.

[00:10:47]>> You fought together.

[00:10:48]>> We're half to half the world by the ears, and he upon my party. I'd revolt to make my wars only with him.

[00:10:56]>> Ofidius knows the score. His people look to him for leadership, and he knows he's just not up to the task. It's gnawing at him all the time. Now, frame this in terms of two arch enemies from different civilizations, different species, putting aside a long history of hostility for a common cause, the destruction of a hated enemy. Only for one, it's a personal thing. He wants revenge on the people in power. For the other, it's civilizational, potentially genocidal. Their short-term goals align, but long-term they are completely incompatible.

[00:11:32]Again, that cling on army with a Ramulan general, there's going to be some tensions. It's a highly volatile arrangement that will not last. And using Marshas to lead his army to victory still leaves Afidious second best in the eyes of himself and his men.

[00:11:48]As one of his lieutenants says, >> "I don't know what witchcraft's in him, but your soldiers use him as their grace for meat, their talk at table, and their thanks at end. And you are darkened in this action, sir, even by your own."

[00:12:04]>> You can't really solve a problem with more of the problem. Aidius knows that Marsh could quickly become a liability, and he is prepared to eliminate him when that moment comes. When Kais Rome is thine, thou art poorest of all, then shortly art thou mine.

[00:12:24]>> And Marcus, as great as he is on the battlefield, is again walking right into the ambush here. He still doesn't know how to play the political game. He goes right on attacking his homeland for the benefit of his lifelong enemy. He doesn't understand the Vulies any better than he does his own people. And now the tribunes that drove him out are spurring all his old comrades to make overtures to save them from the consequences of what they wrought.

[00:12:49]>> BROUGHT IT TREMBLING UPON ROME SUCH AS WAS NEVER SO INCAPABLE OF HELP.

[00:12:53]>> SAY NOT WE BROUGHT IT.

[00:12:55]>> HOW WAS IT WE? WE LOVED HIM BUT LIKE BEASTS AND COWARDLY NOBLES GAVE WAY TO YOUR CLUSTERS WHO DID HOOT HIM OUT OF THE CITY.

[00:13:03]>> A fixation on domestic issues and political thfts over wider geopolitical concerns as a way of biting you in the ass. no matter what century it is. But where a science fiction retelling really has potential to run free is the gap between fighting for ideas and fighting for a tribe or being a soldier and being a patriot. How different Marshious is from the army he now leads in terms of culture, biology, different philosophical and ethical concepts, different sensory perception even can vastly affect different threads weighing against each other.

[00:13:36]And it asks us questions about why we fight. In the original, a human story, this hero of Rome, turned vengeful warlord of Rome's enemies, is talked down not by appeals to justice, honor, or even nation, but blood. He could be driven to destroy his country, but not his family. There's a lot of implications hanging there, depending on how far we want to extrapolate it out.

[00:14:01]What gradient between fully independent self-contained being and pieces of a collective group are we? Can that group be based entirely on shared goals and ideas? Can we create communities based primarily on higher principles or are we locked into some level of blood tribalism? Marshius is trapped exactly balanced between the two. He is at his core a creature of Rome yet he is honorbound to the Vulian cause. When confronted with that, all he can do is facilitate an honorable peace for both sides, but at the cost of being a traitor to both. He's right there between the loyalty of kinship on one hand and his word as a man on the other.

[00:14:42]But if we start changing up the vulies from people in a neighboring citystate on the Italian peninsula to a nonhuman species from some other world, that balance can be quite different. What if they're 12t tall sephopod things? Can he make enough of a connection to switch to their side, or are they just too different? Mass Effect fans say he throws in with the Assari. The blue tentacle heads are a bit off-putting, but they're still close enough to read as women with all the male behavioral and perceptual responses that come with that. Protective impulses, sexual dynamics, whole different thing than fighting with a bunch of dudes. Another possibility, what if the Vuli proved to be closer to Marsha's ideal of Rome once he's among them? embodying the marshall values he holds all the way through. No unruly plebeians or conniving tribunes, but everyone content in their place, a manifestation of the Rome in his head.

[00:15:39]Would Mum still be able to talk him down from his course?

[00:15:44]Historically, the Vuli were absorbed into the expanding Roman Republic and were just Roman by the time of the Empire. But giving it all a sci-fi spin lets us ponder possibilities if that kind of assimilation weren't possible.

[00:15:57]What if they're just too different?

[00:15:59]Can't interbreed. Can't turn them into us. If the biological gap between is too great, is the cultural gap as well? Can a man forsake his own to ally with the alien in the name of an ideal, a personal desire, or even a grudge? Or do we in the end need to be around others like us? And how do we define that? A sci-fi Coralanus inspired story has a lot of possibilities and it's one that I've been thinking about writing for many, many years, but I'm probably never going to do it. So have fun with it or just sweep all of that aside and enjoy it as peak Shakespeare. There's none of that whiny Hamlet [ __ ] in this one.

[00:16:43]Although that might come back in an unexpected way down the line.

[00:16:51]One fire drives out one fire. One nail one nail. Rights by rights falter.

[00:16:59]Strengths by strengths do fail.

[00:17:02]Come, let's away.