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A Thousand Dreadful Things

Yesterday evening, my beloved

cheshcat and I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company's latest production of Titus Andronicus, in the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.

It was..... surprisingly good.

Not being one for mutilation and gore, I have avoided this play for years. Shakespeare's first tragedy is also his bloodiest by far. As S. Clarke Hulse of the University of Illinois at Chicago has noted, this play contains:

14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism – an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines.

It is not uncommon for the Bard's plays to include a high body count -- witness Hamlet or Richard III as examples of other works where nearly everybody dies. However, in Richard III, it is only Richard himself who dies on stage; all the other murders are committed beyond our sight. Hamlet does have five killings in view of the audience, but they are fairly clean and relatively bloodless. Indeed, most of the five occur by poisoning. Also, as far as I can recall, Titus Andronicus is the only Shakespearean play that contains a rape.[*]

Ah well. At least nobody gets their eyes gouged out!

It is only now -- when I am close to completing my goal of seeing all of the Bard's thirty-eight extant plays performed live on stage -- that I decided to relent and finally watch a production of Titus Andronicus. When the RSC included it in their summer repertoire, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to ~~get this one out of the way~~ attend.

On Monday evening, we drove up to Stratford to see a production of A Mad World, My Masters in the RSC's Swan Theatre. Written by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Thomas Middleton, the play is a bawdy romp that delivers up a laugh a minute -- sometimes more! Tis one of the smuttiest, filthiest works of drama to come out of the English Renaissance.

On Tuesday evening -- one day later -- we returned to see Titus Andronicus produced on the same stage with [mostly] the same cast.[**] But the tone and content of these works could not be more different. Seeing them on consecutive days was nearly enough to give me dramatical whiplash!

That said, I am rather glad that we did see this production. The play is remarkably intense, and the performance was exquisite. The director, Michael Fentiman, did not resort to symbolism to soften the impact of the atrocities committed in the play -- for instance, using red streamers instead of blood, as some productions have done. Nor did he go to the other extreme, embellishing upon the violence already inherent in the text. Murder, rape, severed heads, and severed limbs were all to be seen -- with plenty of blood to go around -- but it was done discretely enough so as to not turn the stomach.

My one complaint about this production was that I thought Lavinia too passive a character after being raped and mutilated by Chiron and Demetrius. This was clearly a deliberate choice made by either the director or the actress. Certainly once she loses her tongue, Lavinia can no longer speak. Yet I would have preferred her to remain more engaged and more responsive, in spite of her enforced silence.

Some years ago, I saw a production of Cymbeline performed amongst the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. Watching one of the Bard's final comedies, there were obvious echoes of earlier works, as Shakespeare recycled many of his plot devices (and plots) in Cymbeline -- you have the sleeping potion that creates a death-like state (a la Romeo & Juliet), you have a villain falsely persuading a husband that his wife has been unfaithful (Othello), and you have the damsel in distress solve her problems by dressing up as a boy (Twelfth Night and As You Like It).

I had a similar experience with Titus Andronicus. Watching one of the Bard's first tragedies, there was significant foreshadowing of plays to come. Tamora ruthlessly urging on her husband, the Emperor Saturninus, bears a striking resemblance to scenes with Lady MacBeth and her husband. The insidiously deceptive Aaron seemed a racially inverted version of Othello's Iago, causing havoc for the sheer fun of bringing misery to others. The interaction between Titus and Tamora was strongly reminiscent of that between Richard III and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Woodville. In both cases, we have an ambitious woman dominating her husband -- an emperor or king -- to advance herself and her children to the detriment of all around them. And, of course, it would be impossible to escape the parallels between the father/daughter pairs of Titus/Lavinia and Lear/Cordelia. Both evoke great tenderness and great pathos, with fathers enduring (or feigning) madness and eventually grieving the tragic and senseless loss of their daughter before perishing themselves.

Actually, I am rather pleased that I postponed Titus Andronicus for so long. For, having seen nearly all the other plays already, I can properly appreciate these many parallels. Overall, this was a fantastic performance, and I enjoyed the play far more than I had expected!

I have now seen thirty-six of the Bard's plays performed live on stage. Only two to go! We already have tickets to see Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse in December[***]; now I need to track down a production of Pericles to complete the set!

ETA: Y'all should be proud of me. I made it all the way through a post about Titus Andronicus without making a single joke about pies...

[*] The Rape of Lucrece is clearly another Shakespearean work that includes a rape. However, it is a narrative poem and not a play and, thus, does not figure into this count.

[**] Indeed, Tuesday night was certainly a cheerful one for the Royal Shakespeare Company. With Hamlet playing on their main stage and Titus Andronicus in the Swan, twas barely a survivor to be found! I teased an usher, saying they should re-open their old Courtyard Theatre allowing them to play Richard III or MacBeth concurrently with these two!

[***] We were very lucky to get these! Although the run is two months long, the Donmar Warehouse is a Big London Theatre with a small capacity -- only 250 seats. The tickets went on sale to the public last week... and the entire production sold out in under half an hour! Thankfully, I was online with mouse at the ready when the booking opened at 09:00.

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Congratulations on making it through Titus Andronicus! I'll be interested to hear what you think of Coriolanus when you've seen it.

BTW, our Boston free Shakespeare play on the Common this year is Two Gentlemen of Verona. The tagline in their ads is "What happens in Milan, stays in Milan..."

Thanks! It was easier to sit through than I had always imagined -- didn't have to close my eyes once! ;-D

If I recall correctly, you have already seen Coriolanus, yes? Definitely looking forward to chatting with you about it in December. We are likely to start our Christmas / New Year holiday in Boston this year, so perhaps we can get together then, even if only for breakfast or lunch somewhere. T'would be a good time to chat about the play, as well as to catch up on life in general!

As for this Summer: Have you see the Two Gentlemen of Verona before? We have seen it twice so far -- a rough amateurish version in London last September, and a professional production by Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory (http://sattf.org.uk/) in Bristol in April. The latter was much better, with a brilliant performance by the clown (Launce) and his dog (Crab). Indeed, these two practically stole the show!

Possibly the Bard's first play, it definitely does not achieve the heights of brilliance reached by some of his later works. Even so, this is a fun show except for the very ending. The Tobacco Factory production tried to get around the problematic conclusion by re-writing the ending... though we also found this to be problematic, albeit in different ways.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy and will be very interested in hearing what you think of the production! Perhaps an LJ entry to review it?

Congrats on getting closer to your goal! How hard is the last one going to be to find a production of? You also noted that the plays you saw on Monday and Tuesday had mostly the same cast but didn't say anything in the review about that - anything interesting in the same actor different parts arena?

Thank you!

To be honest, I'm not really sure how difficult it will be to find a suitable production of Pericles. It seems to be done with some frequency... but often modified beyond something that I would want to watch. For instance, two years ago, the Regent's Park Open-Air Theatre in London did PERICLES re-imagined for everyone aged six and over (http://openairtheatre.com/production/pericles-reimagined).

We decided not to see it. I'm more interested in the original than a "re-imagining". Nor do I need productions that advertise being "accessible Shakespeare". I can take my Bard straight-up, thank you. ;-D

Realistically, I think that we won't find a production of Pericles until next year, making it the final Shakespearean play on the list. However, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of something popping up before December, which would transfer that "honour" to Coriolanus.

On a different note, the RSC frequently uses a single ensemble for multiple plays. The very best example of this was the eight-play History Cycle, back in 2008, where one cast performed together for Richard II, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI, parts 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III. Together, these plays tell a single cohesive story, covering a century of English history. Seeing them all together in February 2008 is likely the highlight of all the theatre that I have ever experienced. Using the same cast meant that you could make interesting parallels, like having the same two actors recur as father/son pairs (e.g., the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur) throughout the cycle. It also made for some nice bookending, having the same actor (Jonathan Slinger) play King Richard II in the first play and King Richard III in the final play.

More generally, when the RSC uses an ensemble cast for multiple shows, they tend to rotate the size of the parts. So the actress playing the courtesan Truly Kidman in Mad World -- which is the largest female role and the only character to bridge between the two plots of the play -- is cast in a nameless supporting part for Titus. Meanwhile, the woman cast as merely "Escort/Prostitute" in Mad World returned to play Lavinia in Titus.

Of course, the RSC has their in-house stars -- actors who are known to us theatre goers and will fill the seats. Those are nearly always reserved for big roles, and such is the case in Titus. Stephen Boxer plays the title character; we last saw him playing Petruchio in a 2008 production of The Taming of the Shrew. From one male lead to another. Likewise, Tamora was played by Katy Stephens, who we have seen before as Rosalind in As You Like It, and in many prominent roles during the History Cycle. (Although, to be fair, she was cast as Regan in the 2011 production of King Lear...)

Other "big names" within the RSC include Jonathan Slinger, Greg Hicks, Pippa Nixon, and Alex Waldmann. Although, of course, there are even bigger names -- like Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellan, and David Tennant -- that are also RSC actors (and, indeed, were so before achieving mega-stardom!).

That said, I like the concept of rotating leads within the ensemble about so that different actors each get a chance in the spotlight for different plays. It appeals to my egalitarian nature... and, on a practical level, probably makes it easier for the actors to learn all their lines! :-D

(When I think about how much each actor needed to learn for the eight-play History Cycle, my mind boggles!)

I've heard of productions of part of the History Cycle being done by the same/overlapping casts, but all eight?! Wow! That is seriously impressive!

Of course, just being in the RSC is pretty impressive.

I was thinking more along the lines of seeing the same actor pull off a villain one night and a hero the next, though given the caliber of performers in the RSC, one would expect them to be able to do that. But I have found, with admittedly limited experience in seeing the same actor perform very different roles in rapid succession, that it can add something to my appreciation of the performance. Comparing different actors in the same part does something similar - both can make me notice aspects of a character or play that I hadn't noticed before, or might not have without those parallels.

I hope that makes some sort of sense! It makes sense to me, anyway!

*nods* It does make sense. I've noticed this sort of thing before, particularly during the History Cycle. The recurring father/son pairing of Keith Bartlett and Lex Shrapnel was one such instance. Another case was seeing Joan of Arc in Henry VI, part 1 "resurrected" as Margaret in Henry VI, parts 2 and 3, in that the same actor -- Katy Stephens (Tamora in yesterday's Titus) -- exited one role to come back in the other.

I found less such synergy in comparisons between A Mad World, My Masters and Titus Andronicus. Partly because some of the biggest roles (e.g., Titus and Tamora in Titus; Sir Bounteous Progress in Mad World) were portrayed by actors who were not in both plays. Also partly because of the shuffling of the size of parts. I didn't learn much from having an actress (Rose Reynolds) barely noticed one night (as "Prostitute") come back as Lavinia the next. Likewise for Sarah Ridgeway, who was amazing as the cunning courtesan Truly Kidman in Mad World and forgettable as the replacement Goth queen and a concubine in Titus.

So, yes, I think that I grok where you're coming from... but didn't notice anything like that this time around. If

cheshcat reads this entry and the comments, I will be curious to hear if she agrees with me, or if she saw something that I missed.

Edited 2013-07-03 16:46 (UTC)

No, I don't think you missed anything, except perhaps John Hopkins as Saturninus/Penitent Brothel - two very different characters, but the actor with a strong sense of presence. (Even if he occasionally reminded us of Zachary Quinto!)

Yes, I agree with you. John Hopkins was the only member of the ensemble to have significantly sized roles in both of the plays. Saturninus is not a huge role, but nor is it tiny. And, of course, Penitent Brothel is one of the larger roles in Mad World. I really liked him as an actor, and hope that we will see him again in future productions.

And, yes, there was definitely a Zachary Quinto / Sylar moment right when Hopkins, as Saturninus, is crowned Emperor of the Romans.

Now I really want to see Zachary Quinto doing Shakespeare. Wouldn't he be a great Hamlet? Or maybe R3?

Ooooh, yes! That would be fantastic! I do agree that he would be great in either role... though I think Richard III would be a better fit for his Sylar-like talents.

Apparently, he has been in Much Ado About Nothing... although I wasn't easily able to see which role he played. Personally, I think he would be a great fit for Don John! :-D

Thinking about the actual rapes of Lavinia and Lucrece, I also wondered who else gets ravished in Shakespeare. There are certainly an awful lot of attempted rapes and ravishments to go around:

Measure for Measure - Angelo threatens to kill Isabella's brother if she doesn't sleep with him

Cymbeline - Cloten threatens Imogen, but is killed before he can ravish her.

Troilus and Cressida - Paris steals Helen away - not clear that this is consensual.

Pericles - Marina is sold to a brothel, but somehow keeps her chastity intact despite threats of rape. However, Antiochus is sleeping with his daughter, and so that might count as rape.

All's Well - Parolles extols the villainy of Capt Dumain as "for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus".

MacBeth - in his Dagger speech, Macbeth references "With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design..."

MND - Theseus wins Hippolyta by force: "I wooed thee with my sword and won thy love doing thee injuries". (Is the sword euphemistic? In the original myth, I think Hippolyta is raped by Hercules, who then gives her to Theseus to marry...)

***

I agree that Lavinia was too passive a character after her attack, given that she's fairly spunky in her insulting Tamora in the previous scene before Bassanius is murdered. I don't think her PTSD should manifest in total shut down, but we should see more emotional interplay in her body language, especially since the play repeatedly emphasises her flesh as text to be read...

You know you can still make the pie joke.... we're waiting for it.

:D

Heh. Nope -- no pie jokes! Seems a bit out of taste, really... :-D

Also, nice list. Wouldn't know about Pericles, though, as we still haven't made it to that one.

(Insert Sweeney Todd/Titus Andronicus crossover joke here...)

Indeed! ;-D

Note the userpic :-D

*grin* Okay, that I had missed -- thanks for calling my attention to it. There's a reason why

cheshcat calls me "Dr. Observant"! ;-D

Very cute!

The original meaning of the icon is "When life gives you lemons... make a lemon meringue pie!" It's a lot more fun than plain old boring (American-style) lemonade, and if all else fails, you can give someone who deserves it a pie in the face :-)

But whenever the subject of pie (meat, vegetarian, or dessert) comes up, I've got an icon for it ;-)

Edited 2013-07-05 09:53 (UTC)

OMG, how did I forget Two Gentlemen? Proteus has an attempted rape of Silva onstage, only stopped by the arrival of Valentine. (Who promptly forgives him in the name of friendship and then says he can have the girl anyway!)

Surely that rates as nearly on par with Lavinia and Lucrece's fates, especially as this happens in view of the audience?

I wonder if there's ever been a directorial choice to have Lavinia's rape happen onstage. I think it's unnecessary, as what comes immediately before and after is so horrible it would be overkill.

OMG, how did I forget Two Gentlemen? Surely that rates as nearly on par with Lavinia and Lucrece's fates, especially as this happens in view of the audience?

Indeed! I think that, apart from Lavinia, Proteus's attempted rape of Silvia is the closest we get to this act in a Shakespearean play.

Also, another similarity between these is that, after the attempted rape, Silvia is then silent for the remainder of the play. In Lavinia's case, of course, the silence is enforced by her lack of a tongue. For Silvia, it seems more a case of poor writing by a young and inexperienced Shakespeare. Even so, the parallel is somewhat eerie.

I wonder if there's ever been a directorial choice to have Lavinia's rape happen onstage. I think it's unnecessary, as what comes immediately before and after is so horrible it would be overkill.

Ah, yes. Agreed completely!

I saw a production of Titus back at Duke, one of my friends was in it. I think she got murdered twice (it was a small cast). Was a very unusual show, for each scene change, the audience would actually get up and move to a different spot. Definitely a cool experience, though! Glad you're enjoying the Shakespeares!

Oh, that sounds like fun!

(By the way, there's a name for what you describe, when the audience needs to move about to follow the action. Tis called "promenade theatre")

I had to giggle when I read about your friend being murdered twice. Before I got to the parenthetical bit, a second later, I was thinking: "Wow, that really is a bloody production, if killing folks once still isn't gory enough!" :-D

I didn't see very much Shakespeare when I lived in the States. Only a handful of the bigger shows, really. Like Hamlet, and MacBeth, and a couple of others. It wasn't until I moved to England that I developed a true appreciation for the Bard and his brilliance.

Hope all is well with you, my friend!

I refrain from seeing Titus Andronicus because I laugh an inappropriate amount when he opens the door to the clown in the middle of all the other murder and just kills him right there because he is a clown.

What?? I'm confused! Titus doesn't kill the clown. He sends him to the Emperor bearing a message.

That said, the clown does get killed when the Emperor doesn't like the message. So much for "don't kill the messenger".

Either way, not a good deal for the clown...

Really?! I must have got confused with all the killing. Also, this being Cambridge, the Emperor and Titus probably looked quite similar.

*nods* I can understand losing track of each and every death, what will all that killing going around. During the interval,

cheshcat and I had to confer to figure out who still needed to die. In the current RSC production, five deaths happen before the interval; we spent a good chunk of time working out the remaining nine. Like you said, lots of killing! :-D

It's also possible that the production you saw condensed that part and had Titus kill the clown. I wouldn't know, of course! Directorial choices sometimes do things like that. Earlier this year, we saw a production of Richard III at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol that was very good... except that they had chosen to omit Margaret entirely from the play!

I double checked, though, and it is indeed Saturninus who kills the clown, being displeased with the message he delivers from Titus. Here (http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/titus/section6.rhtml) is a quick synopsis.

Hope all is well with you! Any chance that you will be swinging by Oxford again anytime soon?

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A Thousand Dreadful Things

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