Caius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus after winning the battle of Corioles, is a human killing-machine whose reputation for combat goes before him. When Volumnia, his mother, brings news of her son's victory she revels in his wounds:
"O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for it", [II.i.119]
and to the horror of Virgilia, Martius' wife, she begins to count them. When Toby Stephens (photo 2) played Martius in the 1994 production at the Swan Theatre, directed by David Thacker, his character's face and white shirt became smothered in red stage blood.
It is not just how the characters Menenius and Volumnia talk about Martius' prowess in the field of battle, we actually see it. Professor Stanley Wells explains: 'Coriolanus is exceptional among Shakespeare's plays in that the scenes of battle are concentrated in the early part of the play, not, as is more common, in the last act. So we not only hear, we also see that Coriolanus is a warrior at the height of his powers (photo 1), possessing the virtue he values above all others, valour', (Stanley Wells, Shakespeare, A Dramatic Life, p. 316, 1994).
