Back off the Bard

O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,
Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
Are still together; who twin, as ’twere, in love
Unseparable, shall within this hour,
On a dissension of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity. So, fellest foes,
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
To take the one the other, by some chance,
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
And interjoin their issues.

Coriolanus, Act 1 Scene 1

Shakespeare’s late tragedy Coriolanus dramatizes political instability against the tempestuous backdrop of Roman warfare. Based on the life of the war hero Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, it is an exploration of the frailty of human allegiance, revenge, the heady heights of power, and the issues besetting leaders who navigate treacherous waters. Central to the drama is the tension between ruling elites and the disenchanted masses.

The eponymous warrior’s apostrophe to the “world” in Act 1, Scene 1, outlines a key narrative arc in politics. “Friends now fast sworn”, so intimate they “wear one heart”, shall “within this hour […] break out / To bitterest enmity”. They fall out over nothing, arguing on “a dissension of a doit”. Conversely, “fellest foes” scheme against each other, even to the extent they “br[eak] their sleep”, and yet only “by some chance […] shall grow dear friends”. They form an unlikely alliance and “interjoin their issues”, punning on families and political causes.

Supported by the Arts Council, the National Theatre in the UK ran a production of Coriolanus last year, directed by Lyndsey Turner with David Oyelowo in the title role. It is now streaming on National Theatre at Home, a platform which allowed me to refresh my memory of that wintry evening last November.

The play itself was slickly executed, although some members of the cast belong to the Shakespearean School of Shouting – quite a feat, given they are miked up – and consequently the language felt static and overenunciated. Es Devlin’s sets were brilliantly conceived, pillars rising and falling to give us glimpses into Rome as a political stage, a public forum, a museum, and a battlefield; these pillars doubled as screens and provided a surface for projections. The costumes by Annemarie Woods added flair and style, making use of texture and colour to create a visual feast. With atmospheric lighting by Tim Lutkin, the production was a sight to behold.

The National Theatre received a landmark £26.4m capital investment from the government in the Spring budget last year, the largest in its history. This was added to £35m of private sector philanthropy to ensure that high-quality productions can be enjoyed by as many people as possible. Yet when I bring up the relentless politicization of the arts, it is not in relation to what unfolded on stage. When I flipped open my programme, my heart sank. Why is a picture of Kamala Harris standing giving an address at a podium, looking noble, welcoming, and statesmanlike, included in a programme intended to illuminate Shakespeare’s drama?

Instead of focusing his attention on Shakespeare in his programme note, former Conservative MP Rory Stewart manipulates the material to suit his own political ends – a touch ironic given the play’s ambivalent attitude towards allegiance. Disappointingly, Stewart’s contribution turns into propaganda. He twists discussions about Coriolanus’ Realpolitik and ends with a ringing pre-election endorsement of the Democrats, which in hindsight sounds tone-deaf.

The title pompously proclaims: “Honouring Truth: Rory Stewart on Politicians and Playing the Political Game”. We are promptly informed, “I am writing about Coriolanus, seated in the midst of the 2024 Chicago Democratic National Convention.” A fervent believer in Harris, Stewart writes about politicians “performing a theatre of loyalty to Kamala Harris”. He then broadens his scope to locate parallels between modern-day politics and Coriolanus. He focuses on the performative nature of politics. Politicians must straddle the line between private conviction and public declaration, individual belief and party loyalty. Where does the actor end and the person begin? This is fair enough, although there is a certain degree of projection here. As Clive Davis observes, the production itself “says little about the foibles of modern politicking”.  Jim Keaveney also finds it “odd” that Stewart “draws the links between the US Presidential election and Coriolanus, a theme absent from Turner’s production”.

The note soon turns into a paean to the Democrats. Stewart risks contradicting his title (“Honouring Truth”) by arguing that “each speaker goes beyond ‘honouring their own truth’” at the Democratic Convention. “This is not only out of self-interest, but in order to support the party, the leader, and the mission of winning against Donald Trump.” The tone becomes passionate, ending on a bizarrely emotional climax. His language about congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is strangely romantic, lingering on the details of her sparkling eyes and expressive hands. At this point Coriolanus retreats into the ether, only mentioned en passant by way of contrast (“Unlike Coriolanus […] in a way Coriolanus cannot see”).

AOC, the congresswoman from New York, a hero for millions, accepts her limit of six minutes, and commits to a minor role in someone else’s script. But by doing so, she does not vanish: she is enhanced. Her charisma remains beneath the scripted words, in her unexpected word play, the surprising flash of her eyes and the movement of her hands. Her authenticity is disciplined but never quite lost. Her passionate views on Gaza, like Hillary Clinton’s memories of her own run against Trump, or the pathos of the retiring Biden, remain largely unspoken, but never quite unnoticed, serving only to underscore, the depth of their commitment to the common cause of the party. Unlike Coriolanus these politicians do not seek to assert their virtues like solitary gods. They know that the American state will proceed on ‘the way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs’, with or without them. But for them, as for the tribunes, compromise, and subjugation to the political game, is not simply cowardice. It is, in a way Coriolanus cannot see, an almost noble necessity in that vast community of equal citizens, with varied, incompatible and valid values, which constitutes our fragile democracy.

It is ironic that Coriolanus explores what happens when political elites lose touch with their voter base, and yet Stewart uses the opportunity to give a lecture de haut en bas, only to be proven wrong by the American public. It is also curious how democracy only seems “fragile” when you lose and the “populists” get their way. As we saw in the furor following the Brexit vote or conservative victories over the past few years, democracy only seems to matter to some insofar as it backs up their opinions.

Another enjoyable irony: the production ran from 3 October to 9 November. The US election took place on 5 November. What must the audience members have thought reading this essay on the four days following the result?

On his podcast The Rest is Politics, Rory Stewart repeatedly reassured viewers that not only would Kamala win, she would secure a comfortable margin. He followed up on X, claiming:

Kamala Harris will win comfortably, because:

• Biden’s admin has been solid
• Trump’s lost ground since 2016
• The young Black male voters which Trump needs didn’t turn out in 16, 18, 20, or 22
• Young women like Kamala + vote

Ignore polls—they’re herding, after past misses.

On the same day, he posted another incorrect prediction, suggesting that “journalists would like the US race to seem as close as possible – it suits their appetite for suspense and @afneil’s desire to prod the establishment. But this won’t be a close race decided by a ‘couple of thousand votes’. He is wrong. And Kamala Harris will win.”

Admittedly, Andrew Neil was wrong. The race wasn’t decided by a couple of thousand votes. It was decided by a landslide.

Stewart was not the only one to voice political opinions in relation to Coriolanus. Some reviewers seemed delighted at the opportunity to talk politics under the aegis of art, even if only smuggling it in. The Financial Times reported:

Lyndsey Turner’s mighty production of Coriolanus, led by a terrific, deeply troubled David Oyelowo, which fuses past and present, public space and playing space, to brilliantly eloquent effect. Here is a play about democracy, war, power, populism, and about the endlessly destructive myth of the strong man, that unpeels from antiquity to offer a tarnished mirror to our times.

It only took until the second paragraph of the review to get onto “the endlessly destructive myth of the strong man”. Hemming continues:

Oyelowo’s unyielding Roman warrior stalks through a modern landscape of smug politicians and ambitious rabble-rousers who stir up the restless masses to their own ends. The January 6 storming of the Capitol hangs in the air.

At least she pays attention to “smug politicians” who lock themselves in an echo chamber – but there is a political overtone here.

Using Shakespeare to talk politics is not new. Rhodri Lewis wrote an article in 2017 for the Times Literary Supplement  on “Shakespeare and the American oligarchy”, whose first two paragraphs are worth quoting:

A nervous elite feels the republic under threat, and takes steps to secure it. But its members have for some time existed in a cultural and political bubble of their own making, and find that in “going high” they cannot now connect their concerns with those of the populace at large. Into the gap steps an opportunistic showman – a member of the elite himself, but able to pose as an outsider. He senses that the guardians of the republic are on borrowed time, and sees the chance to advance himself and his allies in their place. Although he has no real policies to call his own, his manner convinces the populace that he is one of them. In due course, he prevails. The dogs of war are unleashed, within and beyond the republic.

This is, of course, a rough plot summary of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Donald J. Trump could never be mistaken for Mark Antony – other, perhaps, than by the man himself – but the play is as current today as it ever was. In fact, I would like to suggest that when trying to make sense of a world in which someone like Trump can run for and win the US presidency, there are few better companions than Shakespeare.

“When trying to make sense of a world in which someone like Trump can run for and win the US presidency” reeks of hubris.  Imagine a world in which someone disagrees with me, and instead of reflecting on my opinions and thinking where I might have gone wrong, I dismiss the other voters as stupid or hateful, or a combination of the two? Moreover, imagine weaponizing Shakespeare to back up your sense of superiority, piggybacking off the brilliance of his mind?

Following Trump’s 2016 victory, renowned Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt wrote a piece for the New York Times titled “Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election”. It runs along similar lines, opening: “In the early 1590s, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great country wind up being governed by a sociopath?” Greenblatt proceeds to argue that Shakespeare’s Richard III, like Trump, had “weird, obsessive determination to reach a goal that looked impossibly far off, a position for which he had no reasonable expectation, no proper qualification and absolutely no aptitude.”

It is human nature to draw parallels between fiction and life, the past and the present. We make sense of our lives by way of stories. Theatre, in particular, allows us a cathartic forum in which to act out our hopes and fears, and emerge into the real world recalibrated. It is also not unusual for playwrights to discuss political topics through fiction. Shakespeare himself lived through turbulent political times and explored the question of how societies are structured, and leaders maintain and lose power. But are the lessons he draws from history really as pedagogically didactic as these commentators think?

The main issue with the overt politicization of art is that it only leans one way. It would be almost impossible to imagine going to a National Theatre production and opening the programme to see a picture of Trump beaming, accompanied by paragraphs of sycophantic praise. In the arts nowadays, you are only allowed to be overly political if you lean left, and in those cases you are congratulated as part of the moral elite. Concerns about “politicization” only emerge when you express the wrong opinions, even if elections come out on your side.

It is clear why literature is so often turned into a political tool. It is subjective and open to limitless interpretation. You could feasibly argue any point. But as a result, you can twist anything to fit the purpose. Politicisation risks compromising the integrity of the work at hand, instead using it as a sounding board for one’s own opinions. Greenblatt’s final paragraph is riddled with contradictions:

Shakespeare’s words have an uncanny ability to reach out beyond their original time and place and to speak directly to us. We have long looked to him, in times of perplexity and risk, for the most fundamental human truths. So it is now. Do not think it cannot happen, and do not stay silent or waste your vote.

Let the Bard have some breathing space, I say. His words have an “uncanny ability to reach out beyond their original time”, speaking to us “directly” – so let them do so, free from political propaganda.