Titus Andronicus: The Right Brain Project

I don’t often come home from a play bloody.  Then again I don’t often come home from seeing Titus Andronicus. 

Many bardwatchers, myself included, would argue that Hamlet is Shakespeare’s best play.  If that’s true, it stands to reason Shakespeare must have a worst play.  My vote goes to Titus Andronicus.  Generally thought to be one of the Bard’s earlier works, Titus is an historical play only in that it is based in Rome. That is to say it’s not based on any pre-existing event (like Julius Caesar) or story (like Cymbeline).  The emperor of Rome has died and his sons are contesting who should be the successor.  The people however have elected Titus, who has just returned from the wars with prisoners in tow.  He refuses the honor and backs the claims of one Saturninus who becomes Emperor.  Saturninus returns the favor by deciding to marry Livonia, Titus’ daughter who is betrothed to Bassanius, the Emperor’s brother (and loser in the contest of who would be Emperor).  Titus approves the match between the new Emperor and his daughter, and kills one of his own sons who attempts to dissuade him.  Saturninus changes his mind and marries Tamara, Queen of the Goths, one of the prisoners brought home by Titus.  Tamara has vowed revenge on Titus for his sacrificing of her oldest son to the gods.  In short order Bassanius and two more of Titus’ sons are dead and Livonia is raped and mutilated.  There’s a break in the action and ultimately pretty much every one dies.

There are really no great speeches in Titus.  There are no real sympathetic characters.  Titus is the “hero” for lack of a better word, but he is also the guy who kills his own son over the question of who will marry his daughter (the son’s sister).  There are trace elements of what are better developed later in other plays.  Titus seems to go mad.  Is this a foreshadowing of Hamlet perhaps?  Aaron exists only to do evil.  Is this a foreshadowing of Iago?  Tamara visits Titus in the latter’s “delusion.”  Could this be a foreshadowing of Twelfth Night?  There’s a very brief encounter with someone who may have been comic relief similar to the doorkeeper in the Scottish play.  Unfortunately, the character in Titus gets hanged.  Speaking of the Scottish play, perhaps Tamara later comes back as Lady M.

For all those reasons, the play doesn’t get performed very often.  This was only our second time seeing it.  In fact, I think it’s only the second time I can remember knowing that it was being performed in our area.  So kudos to the Right Brain Project, a north side Chicago theater group, for deciding to stage this one.

Although the play itself has its problems, the theater experience was first rate.  The RBP is one of those small, relatively new theater companies (established 2005) that operates out of a small venue in Chicago.  Their performance area is roughly the size of a one car garage.  Audience members sit along the sides and the play happens largely in the middle.  There are stage areas at either end but most of the action occurs in between.  The result is the kind of theater experience that is immediate and often thrilling.

To illustrate the immediacy of this particular production, two bowls were hanging from the ceiling at either end of the performance area.  As characters die (which in this play is quite often) “blood” is poured into one of the bowls.  Ultimately the bowls themselves are upended, resulting in the “blood” splashing everywhere.  This comes as no surprise.  Each attendee is given a poncho to wear.  It was our good fortune to sit right in front of the area where the most blood is spilled.  Despite our ponchos, some of the “blood” found its way onto our clothes, thus the statement above about coming home bloody.  We were assured by the program that stage blood usually washes out of clothes.

 The play is violent and brutal and the RBP staging is somewhat violent and brutal as well.  The rape scene is fairly explicit.  This is definitely not a production for the young.

 The performers were all talented but in my opinion two particularly bear mentioning.  Simina Contras, a relative newcomer to Chicago, stood out as Tamara.  At first it seemed that the director had requested that she and the actors playing her two sons affect an Eastern European accent.   However in reading her bio I learned she is actually from Romania so the accent was probably not that difficult for her.  After seeing her as Tamara it would be interesting to see her as Lady M (with or without an accent).  Dominique Worsley, who plays Tamara’s lover and all around evil guy Aaron also stood out.  I would like to see him play Iago sometime.  Give him an evil character with a little class.

Based on this experience I would certainly recommend the RBP for future productions.  Their website, www.therbp.org has lots of information about some of the productions they have done in the past and ones they are planning on doing in the future.  Check them out (when there isn’t a Shakespeare production).  In the meantime, I have to go attend to my blood-stained pants.

Merchant of Venice - First Folio Theatre, Oak Brook, IL

In 1997 we stumbled upon a new theater company doing outdoor summer theater in Oakbrook, IL, a community not too far north of where we live.  Their inaugural play that year was “The Tempest” and since it was close, we had not seen it and of course because it was the Bard, we went.  As I recall David Darlow, a veteran Chicago stage actor played Prospero.  The theater area was located on the grounds of the Mayslake Peabody Estate which was owned by the Dupage Forest Preserve.  The Artistic Director of this new theater was Alison Vesely, an actor who we had seen before most notably with the Footsteps Theater, an all female theater group based in Chicago, known for performing all female productions of Shakespeare’s works.  (We saw their wonderful production of Richard III some time previously)

Needless to say we were excited to go.  We went and had a great time.  We enjoyed the show and have continued to go back since that time.  Although we haven’t made it every year, we have managed to see the Scottish play and several others.  We were able to arrange a Bard brigade group to see Hamlet (A Bard brigade is our name for corralling a group of friends together to go see a play).  The theater expanded its repertoire beyond outdoor summer theater a few years ago and we saw one of their Jeeves productions (quite a fun production I might say).  They now operate year round with not one but two performing spaces within the building on the grounds. 

But they have continued with the summer Shakespeare.  It’s still close, it’s still reasonably priced and it’s still the Bard, so off we went yet again.  This year it was to enjoy The Merchant of Venice, a rather problematic “comedy” in the canon.

Antonio is in love and needs money to win the hand of the girl he loves (Portia).  Antonio’s rich friend, Bassanio, agrees to loan him the money, but unfortunately he has a cash flow problem.  No problem, he will borrow the money temporarily from Shylock, a money lender in the town who happens to be Jewish.  Shylock and Bassanio are not exactly friends; in fact it seems Shylock has few if any friends, just a daughter.  Shylock however is a businessman so he agrees to loan the money to Bassanio with the collateral being a “pound of flesh” should Bassanio not be able to pay back.  As things happen, Bassanio’s ships don’t come in so he has no money to pay back Shylock.  Shylock’s daughter takes off with a Christian, leaving Shylock even more bitter at his treatment at the hands of the likes of Bassanio.  Shylock wants his pound of flesh from Bassanio and he is determined to get it.  Does he get it?  Well, just on the off hand chance that the reader has not seen the play I won’t give away the end.  See the play!

First Folio does a wonderful job with this production.  Kevin McKillip, who we have seen in several productions here, is tremendous as the first love-struck, then thunder-struck Bassanio.  No sooner does he win the girl of his dreams he learns his closest friend is in mortal danger!  Michael Goldberg brings a very physical presence (he’s much physically larger than most of the other actors) to his character Shylock. He does a great job bringing a sense of believability to his fury against Anthonio.  Melanie Kellar as Portia seemed to have fun in the role.  Overall the play was quite enjoyable, despite its arbitrary designation as a “comedy.”

 The First Folio theater experience is the classic picnic before the play setting.  The actual seating area can get a bit crowded when all the tables and wine and cheese are spread out however.  Seating is first come, first served.  If you go, plan to arrive at least an hour early.  It’s bring your own food (and bottle if you so choose).  Spread out, enjoy your meal, and then sit back and enjoy the play.  The seating area is level and the stage itself is elevated.  Occasionally a plane goes overhead, but it’s much rarer now than it was when the theater first started in the late 90s. 

 First Folio has a website (www.firstfolio.org) where information is available for upcoming plays for their season.  Next year they will be doing Cymbeline! A “Folk Tale with Music” they are calling it.  We’re planning on going.  I hope you do to.  Just don’t take our space.

My show of shows

A year ago my younger son told me that his 7^th grade class was studying Shakespeare.  I suggested that I should come in and show some of my collection of playbills, signatures, memorabilia and the like.  I don’t know if was because I was intrigued by the possibility, if it was because the boy didn’t think I’d do it, or perhaps it was because he thought I would, but I emailed his teacher and next thing I knew, there I was in front of a group of 7^th graders explaining what I liked about the Bard.  When I left I told her I would be glad to do it again.  Last week I was back, a return engagement if you will, regaling another class of 7^th graders with tales of theater, theaters and the Bard.

 I began my presentation telling the students that I was there to talk about riots, murders and explosions.  In other words, I wanted to talk about 19^th century American theater.  I started with the first real American Star, Edwin Forrest.  As talented and as ground breaking as he was, today he’s most often remembered for the Astor Place riots.  To quickly summarize, in 1849, his fans surrounded a theater where his theatrical rival, Charles Macready, was performing MacBeth.  Within the theater Forrest’s fans disrupted the play forcing Macready to mime the play because he couldn’t be heard.  In fairness, Forrest’s fans were only doing to Macready what they believed Macready’s fans had done to Forrest on a recent European tour.  Outside the theater, armed guards hired by the theater later fired into the crowd, killing 25 and injuring about 80. 

Edwin Forrest had a friend, or at least an admirer, in Junius Brutus Booth, an English actor who had moved to Baltimore.  Booth named his elder son after Forrest.  Edwin Booth grew to become one of, if not the greatest American stage actor of the 19^th century.  My discussion of Edwin Booth included my trip in 2000 to The Players, the club Booth started for actors still located in Gramercy Park in New York.  My historical memorabilia collection centers mostly on Edwin Booth. I showed multiple pictures, playbills, cigarette cards, magazine articles, biographies and his signature.  .  I ended my discussion of the life of Edwin Booth with the fact that although he was his father’s more talented son, he was not the more famous son.  That honor goes to his younger brother, John Wilkes.

I then talked about Joseph Jefferson.  Although Jefferson was more known for comic acting (“Rip Van Winkle” especially) rather than the Bard, he is important for those of us in the Chicago area in that he is the namesake of the local theater awards (the Joseph Jefferson award).  I have several examples of Jefferson’s autographs, along with a letter, some pictures and his autobiography.  While I was dwelling on the Chicago angle, I talked about the Iroquois Theater fire and pointed out to the students where they could find the most haunted alley in Chicago.

After talking about Jefferson I jumped to the modern day with examples of playbills and autographs and links to the actors involved that a seventh grader would recognize.  I showed my autographed picture of Kenneth Branagh from Hamlet (recognizable to a seventh grader perhaps as Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter).  A quick discussion followed of the time I saw Branagh and his then-wife Emma Thompson do King Lear.  (Emma Thompson would be known as Sybil Trelawny, also from Harry Potter).  I then showed the playbill from a 2000 production of Coriolanus starring Ralph Fiennes (known to the class as Lord Voldemort).  I showed them my signed Timon of Athens playbill from Ian McDiarmid (better known to the class as the Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars movies).

I felt I was running out of time so I quickly moved into ways the students could watch modern versions of Shakespeare stories, often without knowing it.  I pointed out that Disney’s “The Lion King” had many of the Hamlet story points in it.  More specifically I suggested “West Side Story” (R & J), “She’s the Man” (Twelfth Night) and “O” (Othello).  The class was getting ready to read “Taming of the Shrew” so I highly recommended “10 Things I Hate About You.”  Of course I pointed out that the last suggestion starred the late Heath Ledger, he of the Joker fame.

Feeling that I used up my time (I had gone on almost an hour) the teacher asked for questions.  And then the questions came.  (For some it was a choice between questioning me or school work so those students were motivated).  What was my favorite play? (Hamlet).  How much does a theater ticket cost?  (long answer) What was the most popular Shakespeare play?  (Most produced: Midsummer) How many copies of Shakespeare’s plays do I own? (2).  If I went back in time and could ask Shakespeare one question, what would it be? (Did you write these plays?).  Were you ever in a play?  (Not really.  I had a walk on part in a college production of King Lear).

The next day I received a pile of thank you notes from the class which were quite enjoyable to read.  They will in fact become part of my collection as well.  But the next day I received an invitation for a repeat performance.  Apparently the students in this class were talking to the students in another, similar class and that teacher talked to my son’s teacher and voila, I’m set up to do it all again this next week.  This time I want to bring in John Barrymore to the discussion and perhaps a few more pictures.  All I need to remember is to “suit the action to the word, the word to action.”