SOURCE: Carnegy, Patrick. Review of Coriolanus. Spectator 290, no. 9096 (7 December 2002): 58.

In the following review of director David Farr's 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Coriolanus at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Carnegy finds the exotic setting in feudal Japan visually appealing and describes the compelling performance of Greg Hicks as a haughty and aloof Coriolanus.

Coriolanus is famously Shakespeare's most political play, and the hero's insensitivity to democracy needs its battle-ground—in the RSC's new staging, not Rome but the Japan of the Samurai. You would imagine there's blood enough in the play without wondering whether seppuku might have been the answer to Coriolanus's problems, but this is the route on which David Farr's production embarks.

Of course there's no question that Samurai finery looks great on Greg Hicks, and that his mother and wife are decorative in kimonos. But if you're going to do Japan then you've got to...