STAGE REVIEW : ‘Coriolanus’ Somewhere South of Ollie North

You won’t find the phrase Who are you, man? in Shakespeare. Or the word amigo . Or even He’s a real fighting machine . But you’ll find them all in the “Coriolanus” that opened Thursday on a smoky, smoldering, apocalyptic stage at the Old Globe.

This sleek and shifty adaptation of the Shakespearean text won’t be to all tastes. It’s the work of director John Hirsch, who, in this explosive debut at the Globe, has updated and transposed Shakespeare’s ultimate tragedy of character--that of a Roman general’s fatal arrogance--to the restive center of a murky 20th-Century Third World. The conflict brims with sound and fury and some of the most inventive pyrotechnics this side of La Jolla.

Banks of video screens on either side of the proscenium arch almost continually bombard us with battle scenes, anchormen, commercials, election slogans and interviews with top officials (frequently photographed right off the stage). Aufidius’ attacking Volscian armies speak in Latino overtones. Parallels between the defending Romans and recent protagonists of the Iran-Contra scandals are abundantly clear.

David Jenkins’ sets alternate between decadence and destruction--the gilt and marble monuments of Rome and the tall bullet-scarred battlements and Cyclone fences of war. Kent Dorsey’s directional lighting underscores shadowy horrors. It’s a modern-day Circus Maximus; a woolly, wild, bewildering “Coriolanus.” Also a weird, cynical and often stunning one.

There’s a price to pay for such fooling around. Language suffers. Coherence, too. It’s harder to keep one’s ear to the word and one’s eye on the bouncing ball with videos flashing, bullets flying, bombs exploding and men yelling. The trade-off is the briskness of the contemporary parallel--and the savagery of the context.

This is Shakespeare raw, not as we like it, but as we find it when we look deeply enough. It is also Shakespeare talking to us about ourselves, pertinently across the centuries--again. Hirsch took a sizable chance when he decided to go this far out on a limb--and he won. It takes a certain willingness to go along with his vision, to tolerate his concept, but willingness and tolerance pay off. The production is carefully detailed, relentless, audacious and almost always satisfying.

Beginning with Byron Jennings’ vaulting Coriolanus--a chilling cross between Ollie North and a Nazi, with his Aryan blond looks, Marine haircut, angular movements and clipped accents. He’s the dangerous patriot, blind to his utter contempt for the people, the prototypal megalomaniac who places himself above the law--the better (he thinks) to serve it, but who, in his rage, serves only his unquenchable thirst for glory.

It’s a performance not easily topped, and yet Dakin Matthews’ Menenius, friend and mentor to this walking embodiment of war, manages it. His sharp and wary elder statesman is a rightist who knows his politics and speaks his Shakespeare in confident, clear Southern tones (lending credence to those theories about Southern American being drawled versions of the Queen’s Elizabethan). Sam Rayburn comes to mind, but the thrill of this unhurried, sustained performance is in its perfect ripeness.

Ultimately, the wealth in Hirsch’s staging is not its bluster but its subtlety. Elizabeth Shepherd’s Volumnia is wheelchair-bound, therefore a patrician who knows how to exercise a victim’s as well as a mother’s grip on her son.

Lynnda Ferguson’s troubled Virgilia is an unhappy wife who conveys a complex response to her husband’s insupportable ego: love, sex, hurt, submission and anger.

And those are not the only fascinating portraits. There is the wily strength (vocal and otherwise) of Chuck Cooper’s Aufidius; Ken Ruta’s bear of a tippling Cominius; Harriet Hall’s aristocratic Valeria; the colorful ragtag rabble of Aufidius’ army.

For all the bombast and bomb blasts, detail is everywhere. That care and attentiveness are as important to the success of this production as its more dramatic coups de theatre .

Together, they spell power, and also constitute something of a departure for the Old Globe which has tended to be more traditional with its Shakespeare. On balance, it’s a bracing turn of events, for it is easy to forgive an occasional jarring “Meet us at our offices,” when it comes panoplied by so many other rightheaded riches.

Plays in Balboa Park Tuesdays through Sundays at 8 p.m., with matinees Sundays and selected Saturdays at 2. Tickets: $17-$24; (619) 239-2255.

‘Coriolanus’

Shakespeare’s play presented in Balboa Park by the Old Globe. Director John Hirsch. Associate director David Hay. Scenic designer David Jenkins. Costumes Lewis Brown. Lights Kent Dorsey. Videos Matthew Eisen. Sound/music collage Michael Holten, Conrad Susa. Fight choreography Byron Jennings. Stage manager Douglas Pagliotti. Assistant stage manager D. Adams. Cast Mike Genovese, Tim Donoghue, Robert Phalen, Dakin Matthews, Byron Jennings, Mitchell Edmonds, David Wright, Ken Ruta, David Sabin, Jonathan McMurtry, Dierk Torsek, Jake Schmidt, Nelson Mashita, Chuck Cooper, Howard Mungo, Sterling Macer, Elizabeth Shepherd, Lynnda Ferguson, Harriet Hall, Ray Chambers, Mark Guin, Otto Coelho, Kyle Wares and others.