Ruth Leon recommends… Titus Andronicus – Shakespeare’s Globe
Ruth Leon recommendsTitus Andronicus – Shakespeare’s Globe
People in Shakespeare’s time must have had stronger stomachs. They were used to public hangings, beheadings, bear- and bull-baiting, various kinds of tortures, and watching punishments of the most vicious kind. Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus in the flesh, as it were, has always made me a bit queasy, as he intended. So perhaps the best way to see this goriest of Shakespeare’s plays is online. Unlike him, we can now make that choice because the Globe Player has now made it available online.
Director Lucy Bailey’s 2014 production of Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy sees the Globe Theatre transformed for this immersive staging, with a cast including Indira Varma.
The smash hit of his early career, Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare’s most experimental works, a revenge tale of the utmost brutality that centres around the honoured Roman general who fatally refuses to show mercy to the eldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whom he has defeated in war.
Lucy Bailey’s staging sees the Globe transformed into a temple of death, one in which swathes of black fabric coalesce with horrific violence and stand-out performances to create shatteringly powerful drama.
Returning to Rome from a war against the Goths, the general Titus Andronicus brings with him their queen, Tamora, and her three sons as prisoners of war. Titus’ sacrifice of Tamora’s eldest son, and his decision to refuse to accept the title of emperor, initiates a terrible cycle of bloodshed and revenge. As families, bodies, lives, and Rome itself are torn apart, everyone has a motive – but will anyone survive?
I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of seeing his play in this new format.
Do men play the men and women play the women, or is this another Globe-type Doris Godunov?
No,Antonia.