Ralph Fiennes does a great line in tortured souls: pondering the pointlessness of existence in Ivanov at The Almeida a couple of years ago, his brow equally furrowed as the ruthless concentration camp commandant in Spielberg's Schindler's List. His latest incarnation, as the eponymous Brand at the Haymarket Theatre, may just be his most troubled individual yet.

Trapped in an unyielding religious fervour, Brand, a determined Lutheran pastor, presides over the death of his son, wife and mother, and alienates his entire congregation rather than relinquish one jot of moral rectitude.

Previous interpretations of Ibsen's morality play have seen Brand symbolise anything from right wing fanaticism to honest resistance to state corruption. It is testament to the playwright's cunning that Brand could easily have been a politician or even an artist grappling with - or imposing - spiritual mediocrity, depending on the mood of the times.

Adrian Noble's valedictory production for the RSC – a truncated version of Michael Meyer's translation - opts for a more ambiguous approach. Fiennes, effectively discarding his film star good looks in favour of an unsightly crew cut, a thrusting jaw line and a dysfunctional demeanour, lurches around the fjords gurning like Leonard Rossiter's Rigsby - and on Peter McKintosh's imposing metal set there's even a hint of rising damp - snarling disapproval in all directions.

Fienne's Brand is definitely a man with a mission. Arriving in a small fishing community he is persuaded by the townsfolk to become their spiritual leader, and resolves to drive out every last vestige of moral weakness and ambiguity.

He is obviously a damaged figure, and a telling reunion with his mother (the excellently misanthropic Susan Engel) gives some indication why. She is equally as implacable as her repressed son, and there is clearly little love lost between them.

Fiennes' performance bestrides the production like a granite colossus, and it is a credit to the rest of the cast that they compete on equal terms. In the first half, characters don't so much enter scenes as pay homage to Fiennes' Brand from the auditorium before tentatively entering his world. After the interval, Brand - having married his mesmerized acolyte Agnes, played with energetic piety by Claire Price - wages war on the corrupt Mayor (a garrulous Oliver Cotton), and discards the advice of Alan David's pragmatic Welsh doctor to soften his approach.

His world becomes increasingly strangulated though, and, devoid of warmth and light, his 'all or nothing' philosophy begins to wither. He refuses his dying mother the sacrament, sacrifices his son's life to his pious duty, then - with catastrophic results - forbids his wife to grieve. His consequent demise, engulfed by an enormous avalanche, comes as something of a relief, death being for him the only possible release from the vagaries and disappointments of ordinary life.

Punctuated by wintry dissonances on a folksy violin, Noble's strenuously monochrome production, placed before a tall semi-circular metal enclosure and lit with considerable subtlety by Peter Mumford, never for a second lets us off the hook. It captures not only the harshness of the Norwegian landscape but the desperation of a lost people yearning for moral guidance. The pity for them is that their messiah is incapable of comprehending anything but the strictest adherence to the scriptures.

It is only at the end, as the snows come crashing down, that the imprisoning metal edifice is lifted, and Brand is crushed on a bare stage flooded with white light. 'I am the God of love!' booms an authoritative voice from the heavens. Shame he didn't think of sharing this insight with his hapless representative a little earlier.

'Your kingdom is too big for me' pleads Agnes, before ostensibly suffocating in her husband's particular brand of fire and brimstone. Brand's personal tragedy is that, though he is moved by her small, human preoccupations, he is incapable of bending his philosophy to embrace them.

Japan in the early twentieth century – a turbulent place of military incursions and unstable social order. A state of transition exists as the power is shifted from the ruling elite to the democratic parties. The story of a stubborn warrior and the demands of the people he servesÉthis is the world of David Farr's exciting production of Coriolanus for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Old Vic.

Moving the action from ancient Rome not only makes for a visually vibrant spectacle, it also provides a recognizable social context for the more visceral aspects of war - nowhere more so than when Greg Hicks' Samurai-wielding Coriolanus emerges from battle literally dripping with the blood and entrails of his enemies.

The play is Shakespeare's last tragedy and may be seen by some as a warning for public servants who put personal goals before their wider responsibilities.

By shifting events eastwards Farr clearly wishes to present us with a Coriolanus who crosses both centuries and continents, for he makes no attempt to reproduce Japanese society in all its miniature courtesies and rituals; these are clearly western characters in fancy dress. And in Greg Hicks he serves up a contemporary hero/villain, buoyed by his success and secure in his social superiority. You won't find even a nod in the direction of traditional Noh theatre here, nor its eccentric makeup. This Imperial Japan is the land of the rising plebaeans where public accountability is paramount and social etiquette missing, presumed dead.

Central to the production is Hicks' towering Coriolanus. High on the octane of violence he is unable to accept that, in a democracy, he must also garner the approval of the masses he so spitefully desmisses. In his eyes he can, of course, do no wrong – perhaps a prerequisite in a soldier – and it is only when he succumbs to the wishes of his mother and spares Rome his ultimate revenge for banishing him, that he is undone. His performance is perfectly pitched, with both power and subtlety, and a terrifying line in dry humour that would slice through many a malcontent even before a blade is drawn.

Hicks is ably supported by a strong company: Richard Cordery's avuncular Menenius provides whimsical relief from the chaos of battle, and his deflated conclusion is genuinely moving – if only he would learn to breathe in the right places. As Volumnia, Alison Fiske lacks no passion but occasionally her gravelly-voiced delivery is unclear and Coriolanus's crucial relationship with his mother remains sketchy. The twitchy tribunes, played with admirable sanctimoniousness by Tom Mannion and Simon Coates, add an indercurrent of subterfuge to what is essentially a simple plot of rejection and thwarted revenge.

Mainly played on a bare stage with the smoke of battle ever-present, visual interest resides in Ti Green's dazzling costumes, while Keith Clouston's sparsely orchestrated musical interspersions intelligently underline the emotional cut-and-thrust of the plot.

'Ill-schooled in bolted language' Coriolanus, the warrior, asks pertinent questions of us about what we demand of our leaders; the certainty of conviction versus the humility and sophistication required to engage with the public. And in this precisely-staged and energetic production we are moved to believe that perhaps we can't have both.