Coriolanus is a battle-hardened warrior but his contempt for the public, and his refusal to play the political game, sees him banished from the capital he once protected.

Written around the same time as Macbeth, productions of Coriolanus were suppressed in France in the 1930s because of its appropriation by fascists. Post-World War Allies banned it during their occupation of Germany due to its intense militarism. Even Napoleon Bonaparte was said to have banned a performance, thinking it mocked him.

More recently, Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games series, borrowed from the tragedy as inspiration for Panem’s unbending despot, Coriolanus Snow. Evans says Coriolanus is the antithesis of a Donald Trump-like shape-shifter who changes messages to suit the times and audiences.

Shammas first encountered Coriolanus during a reading at Bell’s Nutshell theatre, launching the company’s Walsh Bay home in 2022 – but it was at age 16 when he was first introduced to Shakespeare by a travelling troupe of actors.

“It was 1990 and John Polson and John Bell and Anna Volska came out and did Macbeth for us at lunchtime break in the school hall,” he recalls.

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“We were a bunch of boys from western Sydney who didn’t want to read anything, let alone a text in English. Those moments of Shakespeare hooked me. Amazing that the school got them in because it wasn’t academic at all. It was a big rugby league feeder school.”

Veteran actor Peter Carroll, who plays Menenius, said his teenage encounter with Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Gloucester Theatre was “absolutely life-changing”. In a time of increased global conflict, Shakespeare’s writing, he says, is as relevant as it ever was.

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