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.