Prof. Michael Friedman has recently had his article, \u201c\u2019Let me twine \/ Mine arms about that body\u2019: The Queerness of Coriolanus<\/i> and Recent British Stage Productions,\u201d accepted for publication in Shakespeare Bulletin, <\/i> one of the field’s leading journals.<\/p>\n
Congrats to him from all of us in the department.<\/p>\n
The abstract for it reads:<\/p>\n
Shakespeare\u2019s Coriolanus is queer because its portrayal of masculine erotic desire defies traditional categories of sexual identity. The play not only challenges heteronormativity by offering several examples of homoerotically-charged dialogue between male characters, but it also contests homosexual identitfication by including declarations of heterosexual desire by the same figures. The full erotic natures of Martius and Aufidius cannot be confined within the strict parameters of conventional hetero- or homo-sexuality, yet the recent stage history of the play reveals repeated attempts to stamp as either gay or straight a wellspring of eroticism that defies stability and binary classification.<\/p>\n
Six British stage productions of Coriolanus since the mid-twentieth century illustrate this trend. Tyrone Guthrie\u2019s Nottingham Playhouse staging in 1963-4 and Gregory Doran\u2019s 2007 RSC production both depticted Martius and Aufidius as homosexual lovers. David Farr\u2019s 2002 staging for the RSC, as well as Josie Rourke\u2019s 2013-14 Donmar Warehouse production, portrayed a one-sided eroticism between a homosexually-inclined Aufidius and a heterosexual Coriolanus. Peter Hall\u2019s 1984 production at the National Theatre incorporated various homoerotic elements, but it stopped short of depicting the two soldiers as homosexuals. Similarly, David Thacker\u2019s 1994 RSC staging featured a mutually homoerotic relationship, but Thacker\u2019s version did not exhibit the same striving toward binary categorization of sexuality that was evident in the rehearsal process for Hall\u2019s production. By representing the erotic relationship between Coriolanus and Aufidius in an intentionally ambiguous manner, Thacker\u2019s production came closest to capturing the queerness of Coriolanus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"