Titus

The play is a gruesome, graphic, violent, and bloody tale of revenge raging between Titus, a general in the Roman army, and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, after Titus kills her oldest son after the Roman army battles her homeland. Then Tamora works her way into the royal family in order to ruin Titus life and hurt him the way he hurt her: through his family. Unfortunately, I was confused throughout most of the play but I don't think it was due to Shakespeare. I think it was due to the production of the play and how it was carried out. It's hard for me to catch on to the embellished style of Shakespeare's writing, but that's how he wrote, so I still think the author told the story well of how revenge was the main theme and both sides of the battle were extremely miserable and became ruthless. The subject doesn't seem that worthwhile to me, only because it seemed so unrealistic at times and at the end of the day, they all died in a gruesome way and it seemed to take forever for the plot to actually develop. For example, Romeo and Juliet and even Hamlet seemed worthwhile to me. Romeo and Juliet told the story of star-crossed lovers who fell in love at first sight but couldn't be together due to the rivalry of their families. While that usually doesn't stop a couple in today's world, many times family members don't like one of their relative's spouses, which is really important in affecting the overall relationship. Or, in a spin-off, it could be about interracial relationships or relationships between different socioeconomic classes--differences that could cause a rift in the relationship and between the family. Hamlet seemed worthwhile to me because his journey was just so sad and relatable to me. However, the plot of Titus seemed just about too much blood and death, but without morals and without teaching lessons with a theme. It shows a bad message for the audience: to take utmost revenge when desired in the worst way. I just feel like this subject wouldn't help me in real life, except I guess to avoid acting with solely revenge in mind. Also, it just seemed as if the characters were just doing the opposite of what they should be doing to fix the situation, which was irritating and made it hard to fall into the plot. The actors, however, were really good and at least portrayed the feelings of each character well. The actor that played Titus and the actress who played Tamora noticeably were the best actors. They actually looked so wrung out and grievous when their loved ones died, or when Titus seemed to be acting like he was crazy. The emotions of each character was conveyed properly, but I don't think the author's intent was very clear through the performance of the actors. I was very confused throughout most of the play, and just feel like they could have worked better on the coherence and cooperation between every character. I couldn't tell what Shakespeare was trying to show us, like it just seemed like everyone was dying and everyone was secretly plotting against each other. I also couldn't tell the relation between each character until they either actually said it or did an obvious action. The physical production wasn't really realistic. There was only one stage setting throughout the whole play, even throughout bloody executions. You had to imagine what the execution looked like because they would either just have someone on the floor with blood all of a sudden or they would go behind closed curtains. There was a staircase that went into the stage floor but you couldn't see anything so you had to imagine what happened down there from the actors' lines and performances. You had to imagine that there was a grimy, dark cell where the sons of Titus found the body of the king's brother. Also, I couldn't tell what the wooden tall structure was but it made the characters' voices sound like they were speaking through a megaphone, so I guess we were supposed to imagine that it was an announcer type of structure. The stage could have been better because I feel like it was too much imagination, but the part of execution where colored lights came on and tingling sounds started was amazing. The audience was silent throughout most of the play. To be honest, many of us had to ask a girl to explain the plot and what was going on to us because we were all equally confused. There weren't many funny scenes, but we all laughed at the few ones because it would be hidden jokes or sarcasm inserted by Shakespeare. This time I wasn't influenced by the audience because my friends said they liked the play, but I still didn't enjoy the play even after they explained it to me. I could definitely not convince my friends to go see this because it was just so weird and confusing and more complex than I imagined. I would need a review to sum up everything in a nice light without just saying everyone died. However, my interest in a play could possibly cause me to seek out another play by the same author if it was really good.