SOURCE: Lahr, John. “The Death of Kings.” New Yorker 76, no. 27 (18 September 2000): 150-52.

In the following review of Jonathan Kent's New York staging of Coriolanus, Lahr contends that Ralph Fiennes's Coriolanus lacked a sense of heroism and that Kent's direction failed to establish a point of view.

“The higher the monkey climb the tree, the more you see of his behind.” This cautionary folk adage perfectly sums up the appeal of Shakespeare's “Richard II” and “Coriolanus,” two contrasting studies in political meltdown, which arrive from London's vivacious Almeida Theatre for a limited engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (until October 1st and September 30th, respectively), just in time to rescue the opinion-saturated election-year American public from brain death. Four hundred years ago, Shakespeare was meditating eloquently on issues that are still much debated in our own noisy republic—issues of political savvy, good government, presentational style, and, most...