TITUS+CRITQUE

FILE:

(4 PGS)

Natascha Perez THEA 2000 Richmond 4/17/2017

**// Titus Andronicus //**** Critique **

The play is about the power, family, and especially the vengeance that ensues when the reason concerns with avenging someone in one’s family. Titus Andronicus is a Roman general, whose post war execution of the son of Tamora, queen of the Moors, angers her. A cycle of revenge ensues between these two characters, effecting their friends and family as Tamora becomes Empress of Rome after the war. Tamora uses her love slave Aaron throughout the play and has him help her frame Titus’ family for murder, rape, and further issues, that drives the struggling Titus to the brink of insanity. Having his daughter raped, and further humiliation and facing further framing, the showdown ensues in the end when he finds out that his daughter was raped by the sons of Tamora and kills them, baking a dish with their flesh to feed it to the Empress at a feast. The feast ends with violence and killings of more than half of the characters onstage. I think that Shakespeare did an excellent job telling this story. Although its graphic violence may have offended and disgusted many, I personally enjoyed watching the University of Georgia’s production of this play. I am fairly acquainted with Shakespeare and his work so I did not have as much of a problem understanding or following along but the friends that The issues of rape and violence is a huge issue that I am glad is addressed in this play. This play also illustrates the lack of power that women had and how the importance and status of their place in society is really reflected on their virtue. When Lavinia’s (Titus’ daughters) virtue was corrupted and taken away as she was raped, she became a burden to her father and society itself being an example of the patriarchal society that existed back then. Tamora, even after being an empress, needed to sneak and weave her way in order to have power, and even then, she was just an empress who had to use others to carry out her own work. She was still a woman, a property of the emperor, after he claimed her as his own after the war in the beginning. In addition to all of this, one thing I really like about this play was the importance of family and honor when it comes to avenging and protecting them. Tamora’s vengeance on Titus for having her son killed in the beginning is a clear example and one that I admire. The love a mother/parent who has been wronged and angered runs deeper than the fear of conviction of murder and the further destiny that they would face in the afterlife. The actors did an amazing job. I loved the girl who played Lavinia. I felt so bad for her when she lost her hands and tongue, she did an amazing job portraying someone who has had everything taken away from them. I think the costumes helped immensely with the portrayal of the Moors, Tamora and Aaron’s costume were superb as it was a clear distinction from the Roman empire citizens. I loved the use of animal designs and native cloth that they wore. Tamora’s hair was also very exotic which I enjoyed. The actors all did a fantastic job preforming and I think the costumes really helped them along the process. It sure helped me in trying to identify who was who and what side was what side. I would say that the physical production of the play was imaginative, mostly due to the part that the stage was designed in a very specific way and the actors had to use the surrounding and scenic design of the stage as their tool to convey the setting of each specific scene. All in all, I would say that the stage design where there is a large circle just above what is supposed to be a hole almost that represents a cave where all of the characters who died would go was cool. The first thing that I noticed when I walked into the theatre was definitely how the stage was constructed. The lack of actual stage furniture made it easy to have a fast scene change, at the expense that it really relied on the actors to carry out and maintain what the environment and setting was in each individual scene. The thing is, the actors could, which made this play easy to follow for me. Unless the audience were fairly acquainted with Shakespeare and his work, I found that they were very confused with what was happening. All of my friends who came and saw it with me were non theatre majors and they had no clue what was happening and who was who. I personally was not really influenced by their confusion due to the fact that I knew what this pay entailed and I enjoyed the portrayal by the university, however it was boring being the only person in my group who understood what was happening. My friends all thought it was too confusing and would have said it was average due to the dialogue’s. I think that if they were acquainted like I was that they would have actually really enjoyed it. I personally will always urge any of my friends to see a Shakespeare play because I am a huge fan of Shakespeare. However, this production was honestly boring at times. I do encourage people to go see it anyways due to the fact that the scenic design and stage set up was simply superb. I thought it was really well done and simplistic, the use of stage props was very minimal and the design allowed for a very light and fast moving action pact at times show. I honestly think that reviews are so subjective and biased because no one has the same opinion as the other and I would not be surprised if the show received a really negative review due to the story and Shakespeare dialogue being spoken can be hard to understand for some. However even if I am influenced by those before me who have seen something, I like to go off of my own opinion in the end when I have finished seeing the show. My interest in a given play such as this will definitely lead me to search out and read other plays by the same author. If I like the style of a playwright or novelist I definitely will want to read further works similar to the one I have enjoyed just experiencing. As I said before, I am a huge Shakespeare fan and like to re read plays of his just to entertain and pass time. My personal favorite that I have also starred in is his play //A Midsummer Night’s Dream//, where I played Helena.