Sam+Titus

The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus is a revenge story and is a dark, bloody play about two opposing groups of people. Titus and his family are forced to protect against the Goth’s after a series of wars, murders, and exchanges of power. The play itself has quite the reputation and is a complicated battle, starting with Roman’s winning the war against the Goths. The action of the play heats up almost immediately, with Titus sacrificing Alarbus, who is Tamora’s oldest son. This action, would prove to be his first mistake of the play, as Tamora subsequently vows revenge against Andronicus and his entire family from this moment on.

The author told the story extremely well; after all, it is Shakespeare. However, in modern times, in order to truly understand his work, I need to read it several times over. This was not possible when going to see a play. So, I could not understand it fully after seeing it once. After viewing the show, I did go research more and read a few of the scenes and could understand the concepts better. However, I would prefer to see a play where I do not have to do so much extra work in order the understand the meaning. But, I do appreciate what the play has to offer and believe that it was exceptional in the time that it was written and performed (in the late 1500’s), even though it was banned due to the natural of the play.

The subject matter was intense, yet worthwhile to me. I had a lot of expectations. I had heard that the pay was very bloody and involved quite a lot of death. So, there was no surprise with all the blood and gore. However, I actually expected it to be more intense. The play itself, content wise, was a classic tale of revenge. It was at times complicated, but made for a great tale. Two of the most intense parts, were Lavinia’s bloody mouth reveal and the human-meat pies force feed to emperor and Tamora.

I believe every single one of the actors did a great job playing the part and conveying the authors intent. My favorite character was Saturninus who was played by Charlie Cromer. He played the part so well. His mannerisms and facial expressions were so on point, and on the stage those emotions can be hard to produce naturally and he did the best job. His character is so out of the loop, and he did a hilarious job of playing a dimwitted emperor. I also thought that Tamora’s sons, Chiron and Demetrius, played by Tom von Dohlen and Gil Eplan-Frankel, respectively, were great at playing villains. They were both just so creepy and even nailed the evil walks down to the stage. Just by their stances alone, you could tell what kind of men they were portraying, and they did so in a great fashion. Also, shout out to Alexa Adcock from our class, who played two roles, Caius and the captain. Those were just some of the few stand out performances, but everyone did an excellent job preforming a difficult play, even on opening night.

The physical production was very unrealistic and imaginative, but it worked quite well. It was basically just a large platform with some columns and a pit. At one point in the play, Aaron hid some gold underneath a “tree,” but it was really just some wood that acted as stairs to get to the upper-platform. I would say that the physical production was good, especially for the budget they were probably given. I would have liked to see a slightly more realistic setting, but I understand why they did not, and it ended up working well. The unrealistic physical setting gave a lot of creative lead way to the director and the scenic designs which was cool to see though. Further, a lot of the murder and cutting of limbs scenes were imaginative with intense music and motion from the actors. I found this to be an excellent use of a hard to show action. One thing that was confusing was having minor characters play multiple roles, but that was a minor inconvenience. The audience really seemed to enjoy the play. I recognized most of the faces there so they were mostly a lot of theatre majors and their friends. So, the audience was really tailored for the play and understood the typical conventions. There was also a lot of gasps during Lavinia’s bloody reveal, which is expected. I took a friend to the play and he actually ended up likely it way more than I did. So, you do not have to be a theater major in order to enjoy or appreciate the actual play. I always take the trouble to urge my friends to see good plays. And I would definitely recommend this play to my friends in the future, if I knew that they particularly liked Shakespeare. Also, I will always look at other plays by authors that I like. Shakespeare is a very well-known author, so I already know most of his popular works. In conclusion, the play was okay, it was just a little hard to follow and it was very creative. The acting was phenomenal, as per usual and it looked like a professional production.