Shakespeare Theatre's "Titus Andronicus' (2nd review)

Stephen Sondheim would approve of the Philadelphia Shakespeare Company's recent production of Titus Andronicus.

Sondheim's intention with Sweeney Todd was to fashion a fun show by re-creating La Théâtre du Grande Guignol ("Theater of the big puppets"), popular 19th-Century diversions that used blood and brutality for entertainment. Sondheim believed that melodrama and farce were "obverse sides of the same coin."

Apparently that was Shakespeare's motive as well in writing Titus Andronicus. He sought to capitalize on the popularity of exaggerated villainy and barbarous revenge in the plays of his contemporary Christopher Marlowe. Eventually, Shakespeare achieved greater depth of characterizations. But his early Titus Andronicus shows Will pulling out all his bloodiest stops.

So director Aaron Cromie made a wise choice to focus on the sadism, blood and horror. And he utilized puppets large and small to depict many of the brutalities.

From Aeschylus to today's slasher films, audiences have found pleasure in graphic violence. And so the attendees at this production laughed and cheered. They appreciated the play not as an example of Shakespeare's literary style, but as pure entertainment.

What's in the meat pies?

Titus is set during the latter days of the Roman Empire. The title character returns victorious from a decade-long war. His prisoner, Queen Tamora of the Goths, revenges the loss of her son at Titus's hands by murdering two of Titus's sons. At the play's climax, Titus executes two more of Tamora's children, then has their bodies ground up and baked as meat pies.

The link with Sweeney Todd is obvious. And no doubt you recognize a similarity with Aeschylus's Orestiad. In the first play of that trilogy, Agamemnon, King Atreus of Mycenae proposed to settle a feud with his brother Thyestes at a festive banquet. The main course of the meal turned out to be the body parts of Thyestes's eldest son. Aeschylus tells us that, when the father recognized his son's fingers, he regurgitated the meal.

The Greek dramas spoke of violence but never portrayed it onstage. The script for Titus does show us murders, rape, beheadings and the chopping off of hands and tongues. Cromie depicts much of this by using 40 puppets— some handheld, some shadow puppets— which interacted fluidly with the live action of seven performers playing multiple parts.

Humanizing Sweeney

Exceptional performances came from Rob Kahn as Titus, Caroline Crocker as Tamora, Jered McLenigan and Davon Williams as two of the villains, and Lesley Berkowitz as the victimized Lavinia. Other valuable cast members manipulated the puppets and shadow figures.

To be sure, Sondheim humanized his gore by adding the poignant story of Sweeney Todd's wife and their daughter Johanna, and by appending sociopolitical elements about the dehumanizing effects of the industrial revolution. Still, despite its lack of a human dimension, this production of Titus Andronicus provided many more thrills than you would have expected based on the play's desultory reputation.♦


To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.