Death, that dark spirit, in ‘s nervy arm doth lie, Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die. (II.i)

As Coriolanus begins, two Roman patricians, Menenius and Martius, calm a revolt by the city’s famished plebians. Martius, who despises the plebians, announces that their petition to be represented by tribunes has been granted. When Volscian invaders attack Roman territories, Martius helps lead the Roman forces, and almost single-handedly conquers the Volscian city of Corioles, winning the name “Coriolanus.” The Volscian leader, Aufidius, swears revenge.

Victorious in battle, Coriolanus expects to be made a consul, but by custom he must ask for votes from the plebians. He does this so contemptuously that he is rejected as a consul. The tribunes later charge Coriolanus with treason and banish him from Rome. He seeks his former enemy, Aufidius.

Coriolanus and Aufidius join forces to conquer Rome. On the brink of success, Coriolanus is persuaded by his mother, Volumnia, to spare the city, though he knows it may cost him his life. Aufidius and his fellow conspirators plot Coriolanus’s death. Coriolanus returns to Corioles, where he is assassinated. Rome honors Volumnia for saving the city (reproduced with permission from Folger).

Postcards of Coriolanus:

Productions of Coriolanus:

1910 Beginning on March 28, several companies presented a London Shakespeare Festival at His Majesty’s Theatre. Herbert Beerbohm Tree‘s company played The Merry Wives of Windsor, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. Norman Mckinnel presented King Lear and The Merchant of Venice; Arthur Bourchier and his company came next with The Merchant of Venice. H. B. Irving played Hamlet, and Frank Benson‘s “Bensonians” followed with the Taming of the Shrew and Coriolanus. Poel’s Elizabethan Stage Society gave a performance—in the “original” sixteenth-century style—of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Lewis Waller revived his Henry V, and Tree returned to close the Festival with The Merchant of Venice and Richard II (Loney, I: 54).

1912 The annual Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Festival opened this year on April 22 with The Merchant of Venice; Frank Benson’s company also performed Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus, The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Richard III (Loney, I: 63).

Sir Henry Irving was the stage name of John Henry Brodribb, who was born in 1838 and raised in a working-class family. He was one of the most famous British actor-managers and dominated the late Victorian Stage (along with Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree). He was born in Somerset but lived in London from the age of ten. It was seeing Samuel Phelps (also a mentor to Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson) playing Hamlet that inspired Irving to take to the stage, and he joined the Lyceum Theatre, Sunderland, in 1856. Irving serves as somewhat of a common ancestor of the majority of the players in our collection and on the site, having mentored Forbes-Robertson and Sir Frank Benson, who himself mentored Beerbohm Tree.

Irving’s breakthrough came with the success of The Bells in 1871, produced at the Lyceum in London. From then on, his personal life took second place to his professional life. On opening night of The Bells, November 25, 1871, Irving’s wife, Florence criticized his profession: “Are you going on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?” Irving got out from their carriage at Hyde Park Corner, walked off into the night and chose never to see her again. Though they never formally divorced, he never married again after this. Their two children were Henry Brodribb, born in 1870, and Laurence, born in 1871. Henry “H. B.” Irving became an accomplished actor-manager in his own right and later a lawyer and writer.

It was after this that Irving took over the lease for this theater, the Lyceum, from Hezekiah Bateman, and Ellen Terry became his leading lady. She was the Ophelia to his Hamlet, the Juliet to his Romeo, the Beatrice to his Benedick, the Portia to his Shylock, the Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth. Together, they were an international sensation, the gold standard of Shakespeare-in-performance, a tour de force. Their air-tight performing relationship reportedly made Bernard Shaw, then a theater critic, jealous. They went into joint management of the Lyceum in 1878. During this period, Irving’s Shylock (shown here) became as renowned as his Hamlet and became the new standard for the Jew’s stage portrayal. He also famously played Iago opposite Edwin Booth’s Othello. In 1892, he memorably played Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII. With the Lyceum company, he and Terry made several hugely successful tours in the US and Canada. As Terry aged, she moved on to solo performances and eventually left the company.

In 1898, he was appointed Rede Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, a position previously held by the likes of Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, J. J. Thompson, and others. His lecturer was called, “The Theater in Relation to the State.”

Irving was the first actor ever to be appointed to knighthood, which he received in 1895. His final Shakespeare performance in London was of Coriolanus, in 1901. He died in Bradford after having a stroke during his final provincial tour in 1905 where he played crowd favorite, Tennyson’s Becket. The chair in which he sat when he died is now on display at the Garrick Club, of which he was a member. He enjoys the distinction of being the first person to ever be cremated prior to internment at Westminster Abbey.

Irving produced his own critical edition of Shakespeare’s works, from a performer’s lens, published as The Henry Irving Shakespeare by Cambridge University Press in 1906. He wrote, in an 1893 issue of The English Illustrated Magazine, that his four favorite parts were Hamlet, Richard III, Iago, and Lear. That same year, Bram Stoker, Irving’s manager and friend, published a two-volume biography titled, Personal Reminisces of Henry Irving. William Archer published a study (1885) of Irving during his lifetime, but the rest came posthumously. There have been many books published about the monumental Sir Irving and his work, even to this day.