Titus Andronicus

I've long been interested in William Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus, so I was excited when Red Bull Theater announced they would be producing the play with Patrick Page in the title role.

Last night, I saw the show, which is playing at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Page is excellent as always, but I found myself (as I often am) most fascinated by the role of Lavinia, played in this production by Olivia Reis.

Poor Lavinia not only has her hands chopped off, but her tongue is ripped out, too, rendering her mute for most of the play. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of opportunities for fine acting, though, and Reis excels in using a simple smile or a small groan to speak volumes.

The play is filled with references to Ovid's Metamorphoses, a work Shakespeare went back to again and again. When Shakespeare's actors included the piece in the First Folio of his work, they confidently attributed the play to him, but its bloody stage effects and straight-forward verse have led many critics to want the play to have been written by someone else.

Red Bull included a program note by Ayanna Thompson speculating the piece was co-written by George Peele, one of numerous rivals postulated by critics at one time or another as a possible author of the piece. This is in spite of precisely zero external indications of the play being authored by anyone other than Shakespeare. Since there is no objective evidence, Thomson notes "several resonances" with the anonymous play The Battle of Alcazar, which has been attributed to Peele.

Idle speculations about authorship aside, this tale of narcissistic leadership and senseless bloodlust has much to say to us in the 21st century. Red Bull's production is mostly faithful to the original, though it cuts quite a bit and changes Andronicus's brother Marcus into a sister, Marcia, played memorably by Enid Graham. (Similarly, the noble Roman Aemilius is transformed into Aemilia, played by Blair Baker.)

Other fine performances are delivered by McKinley Belcher III (who was wonderful in A Soldier's Play) as Aaron and Amy Jo Jackson as the nurse, a role that couldn't help but make me remember that character's resurrection in Taylor Mac's play Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus.

The production has been extended through May 3rd, so you still have a chance to see this lovely staging by Jesse Berger before the whole thing goes to the Goths.

Gary

This afternoon, I saw Taylor Mac's new play Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus. If you haven't seen it yet, oh yes, there will be camp.

Not that there was ever any doubt. Mac's plays are filled with high camp, and with a cast including Nathan Lane, Kristine Nielsen, and Julie White, we know we're in for some shockingly comedic performances.

Titus Andronicus is the bloodiest tragedy William Shakespeare ever wrote, and taking a cue from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Mac takes a minor victim in Shakespeare's slaughter and builds an entirely new play around him.

That character is the clown, a term that in Shakespeare's day generally referred to a foolish rustic person, not necessarily to a white-faced entertainer. In Titus Andronicus the clown comes in with a basket of pigeons, and Titus asks him if there are any tidings from the god Jupiter. After a few jokes, Titus convinces the clown to carry a message to the emperor, and wraps a knife in the letter.

Of course, delivering a letter with a knife in it isn't the most polite thing to do, and the emperor orders the clown hanged. In Mac's version, however, the clown (whose name we learn is Gary) escapes and gets a job as a maid, cleaning up the mess after the latest blood-filled coup. Santo Loquasto's set design features mounds of bodies and body parts, which Gary and his fellow maid are tasked with tidying up a bit.

Body humor abounds, but the play isn't just after laughs. By implication, Mac asks us to consider our responses to all mass slaughters and political disasters, including increasingly frequent school shootings and a failure of allegedly democratic systems to prevent the rise of tyrants.

Director George C. Wolfe keeps the tastelessness classy, and Danny Elfman provides a wickedly dark score. If you're interested in learning more, check out the show's website.