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.
