National Theatre Wales's Coriolan/us: ready for take-off

Mike Pearson and Mike Brooks are constantly pushing the limits of what can be achieved in the theater specific sites. So what do you have planned for your mash-up of Shakespeare and Brecht in an airplane hangar?

In an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Cardiff, which seems to be the slowest car chase in history happens. A hike black Volvo estate on the concrete floor majority, followed by a white van beaten. When both vehicles stopped, a group of actors out, followed closely by director Mike Pearson. "Yes, the Volvo face," you do. "Much better." Then he looks at me. "I'm not sure that this is what Shakespeare had in mind."

Since 1997, Pearson and his co-director Mike Brookes, on site, have gained a reputation as two of the most adventurous theatremakers in Britain, giving life to ideas that the performance is in the theater, part land art, multimedia event part and part unclassifiable. The first five miles, in 1998, was a preamble to the west across Wales, inspired by the 1820 riots that followed an attempt to develop the region Englishman, a live radio broadcast of the work is transmitted by a station radio 50 miles. Later that year came the smoking gun, "a statement" on the site of a famous unsolved murder Cardiff, for the general public gathered around a car hi-fi to see what was happening.

two summers ago, for his extensive work to date, Pearson / Brookes opened the inaugural season of National Theatre Wales staging of Aeschylus' The Persians in a camp military training at Brecon Beacons - a model village built to train soldiers in FIBUA (Operations in Urban Terrain). Guardian called "site specific theater with a vengeance." The Telegraph "one of the most imaginative theater, powerful and disturbing the Year"

The new show, commissioned by NTW and the World Shakespeare Festival is a trace class: Coriolanus, which took place in the former RAF base. Called Coriolan / us, your version is said Pearson, an "infusion" of the study of Shakespeare's political and military power with Bertolt Brecht's Coriolanus, his attempt unfinished very Left to update the game, translated excerpts may overlap Shakespeare with a script

The project seems quite complicated - why staging in a tough environment? "We wanted to work in a great space," says Pearson. "It was partly to keep bowling over But it is also because we have been influenced by events in the world during the past year: .. revolution, emerging democracies" Brookes involved, looking at the hangar enormous: "These things happen in the streets - and this is an open space."

Space

is definitely the word to pass through it, the roof curved up like the ribs of a giant whale dissolve our words as we walk (echo lasts nine seconds, apparently). The public, 350 or less for each performance will be displayed with a radio headset, when you open the doors and big blue convoy Coriolanus (Volvo is yours) roared to the show begin

• Actors troupe
• "Rome" at one end, with "Anzio" on the other, every moment captured on video. Certain scenes will happen in three robbed caravans, others in the huge roof while fighting takes place in a corridor of wind block known as "Sniper Alley." The public will have the freedom to follow the actors in their movements, or watch the action on two giant screens, while listening to the Live audio signal. A moment, Pearson says, we can say safely away, and the next day you're in, "Every audience member will create a different mix of the issue for themselves." Brookes nods: "It will not be as easy to see a play somehow, but I want people to comply with the terms of the most direct way possible.".

Work

echo this strange feeling that pervades the coverage of many conflicts of the 21st century, from Libya to Egypt to Syria: Geopolitical distance combined with the intimacy often turns my stomach rolling news and pictures amateur. Everyone in this production will be watching others. The cast will wear costumes that look retro, but not openly ("We were a little influenced by the Nordic television drama," admits Pearson), allowing them to appear suddenly in the crowd, then mix again in. Even when it will not be properly scenes: Live images can be viewed from any camera at any time, which raises the intriguing possibility that the players adjust their microphones or sit and rest may be soon find themselves on the screen. "This is a great question," smiles Pearson. "The first performances will probably be a shock."

is easy to see how these tensions between the public and private sectors could inform Coriolanus, the story of a Roman general whose very successful attempts to adapt to civilian life ended in disaster , wearing a military invasion in the city where they once stood in the office. Set amid food riots, alternating turbulent crowd scenes and intimate moments, the game - even by the standards of Shakespeare - included a surprising variety of ways. In the 18th and 19th centuries, became a star vehicle for tragic actors, years later, has been interpreted as everything from Nazi propaganda (which was very popular in Germany during the Second World War) a warning Fascism (Laurence Olivier famous 1959 production culminates in the hero is hanging upside down, an echo of the execution of Mussolini). Last December, Ralph Fiennes, 12 years after having played the role in London theaters Almeida, you released film set in a conflict like the 1990 war Balkans.

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