Live Performance Review: The Tragedy of Coriolanus Performed by Beijing People's Art Theatre (Edinburgh International Festival (E.I.F.) 2013), Tuesday 20.08.2012 19:30 The Edinburgh Playhouse, Edinburgh 

It is very unusual for me to willingly go to see a performance of Bill Shakespeare's work. What intrigued me was that the musical accompanyment is provided by two of China's leading heavy metal bands, 'Miserable Faith' & 'Suffocated'. The prospect of Bill being performed alongside sizable riffage was too tempting.

Sadly said riffage was not as prominent as one had hoped. Given the nature of how this aspect of the performance was mentioned the media/advertising blurb, I was expecting a harder sound and for it to feature more in the performance.

The english supertitles were on both sides of the stage, at decent height, though the positioning was such that it was not easy to glace. To try to keep up with the text I was having to take my attention away from what was happening on stage. Also the tiles were not well coordinated with what was happening on stage. There were times when quite a bit of dialogue had been said by an actor before any text appeared on screen, then it would move onto the next screen too quickly. Early on the titles appeared to be repeating themselves. The disjointedness between text and what was happening on stage was also an issue in the performance of Fidelio. This element of supertitles needs to be sorted, as at present it is compromising the ability to follow a performance. It was just as well for this performance, that I am familiar with the story of Coriolanus.

The costumes and set were impressive as was the scale of the production. Sadly I find it difficult to identify other elements that I found impressive about it, and impressive costumes and scale in my mind is not enough for the performance to be appear impressive. In the second half I was aware of finding myself to be feeling bored, which is fairly damming.

Rating: 03/10.