Titus Andronicus Review: Bloody Awful, Worthwhile

William Shakespeare is said to have coined several English words and phrases in his first tragedy, “Titus Andronicus,” including “Devil incarnate” and “unappeased” – though not, surprisingly, “bloody awful.” That is how it has been judged (emphasis on the bloody) by critics from the 17th century (“rubbish”) to the 20th: “ridiculous” (Tennessee Williams); “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written” (T.S. Eliot): a “poetic atrocity” (Harold Bloom).

The tale of revenge – laced with ample portions of murder, mutilation, self-mutilation, madness, rape, filicide, decapitation, culinary cannibalism (think Sweeney Todd) – has gained some passionate advocates recently, including Julie Taymor, who did a stage version shortly before she directed “The Lion King”and a film version shortly afterwards.

For the average theatergoer, however, the main reason to see the Public Theater’s production of “Titus Andronicus,” in a brief run that ends December 18, is curiosity: How can they pull this off? Is “Titus Andronicus” really the worst of Shakespeare’s plays? At only $15 per ticket, as part of the admirable Public Lab series, this is reason enough.

Director Michael Sexton initially downplays the vicious and visceral goings-on. The staging is spare, Brett Banakis’s set mostly consisting of unpainted plywood planks that are sometimes stacked up, sometimes scrawled with crude drawings or phrases (“rape.”) Brandon Wolcott adds both music and sound that helps set the right mood. There is, for better or worse, a little intellectual meta-theatrics at play here too: We see a young boy (Frank Dolce) with a school backpack, and eventually see that his books include Ovid, Seneca and Thomas Kyd, all authors of works said to have inspired Shakespeare’s bloody tale.
The 11 members of the cast do more than just keep straight faces. There are believably intense moments, especially involving Jay O. Sanders as Titus, the victorious Roman general who sets off the chain of revenge by murdering the son of the captured Queen of the Goths (Stephanie Roth Haberle) to avenge the deaths of his sons during battle. Thanks to Sanders’ performance, Titus’s anguish comes close to moving us, such as during the endlessly silent scream when he is given bags that he realizes contain the heads of his sons. Jennifer Ikeda manages some intense moments as well, which is quite a trick for the role of Titus’s daughter, Lavinia, given how over-the-top her victimization: She is not only raped, her hands are cut off, her tongue cut out, and at one point she puts a severed hand in her mouth.

But then the blood comes, buckets of it, literally buckets. And as all that stage blood paints the actors’ bodies and splashes around the stage — a Theater of Goo — a realization sets in: There is just so much that any director can do to clean up “Titus Andronicus.”

Other words coined by Shakespeare (in other, better plays of his): worn out, worthless, unreal, unmitigated, to torture.

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Titus Andronicus
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Sexton; sets by Brett J. Banakis; costumes by Cait O’Connor; lighting by Mark Barton; music and sound by Brandon Wolcott; fight director, Thomas Schall.
Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.
Ticket price: $15
“Titus Andronicus” is set to run through Sunday.
Cast: Rob Campbell (Lucius), Patrick Carroll (Chiron), Frank Dolce (a Boy/Mutius/Young Lucius/Alarbus), Jacob Fishel (Saturninus), William Jackson Harper (Martius/Demetrius), Daoud Heidami (Bassianus/Quintus/Publius/Aemilius/Nurse/Messenger/a Goth), Sherman Howard (Marcus Andronicus), Jennifer Ikeda (Lavinia), Ron Cephas Jones (Aaron), Stephanie Roth Haberle (Tamora) and Jay O. Sanders (Titus Andronicus).