TITUS ANDRONICUS –The One With That Human Pie!

...Well! –it is hard to avoid being stunned into such terseness upon completion of reading this play, one I had not previously read or seen on stage and knew only from its notorious reputation for goriness. Several times as I read it I had to put down the text because I was numbed by the horror of what I was reading, for this is Shakespeare’s most sensationally savage play, and unlike that more renowned and stylishly heightened horror piece Macbeth, Titus Andronicus has a rawness and viciousness that is fascinatingly frightening to encounter. Written at a time when there was a trend for gore and sensationalism on stage, with a killing every few minutes, this play was one of Shakespeare’s most produced in his own time and probably is one of the reasons he became so popular a writer. Because it is shockingly ”good” theatre, providing just what the audiences wanted in a horrifyingly seductive way. It works in the same way that horror films do, or roller-coasters for that matter. I’d be fascinated to know how many people have fainted during performances of it, for I’m sure the number must exceed that for any other Shakespeare play. The number of characters who snuff it is also probably one of the highest for his plays; some barely last a moment on stage. But it is the manner of the deaths that is most shocking: This is set in a harsh period of history, centuries before Shakespeare’s own time (which itself wasn’t exactly humane), but serving sons up in pies to their mother is on a whole different level, even as an act of revenge. This is just one of several gruesome scenes that so easily could descend into farce of a very black kind if not seen in the context of the whole play or dealt with very carefully in a production.

It is a dark, troubling, upsetting piece –Shakespeare’s first tragedy, and bears signs of being the work of an enthusiastic but not yet fully developed writer, but it has terrific energy amidst its rawness and a clarity of thought and dialogue that, no matter how we feel about it, makes the lines jump off the page as we read them. And there are some real gems that make us step back a moment from all the gore –like the sobering words of Titus to his brother who has just killed a fly, asking him to consider the fly’s mother and father, for their sorrow at losing a child could be as great as a man’s. This is a terrific little scene that brings in a whole new element to our viewing of the story and of our own lives. Few of us have slaughtered enemies of Rome, but who has not swatted a fly and never given it a second thought? I have always liked such moments of reflection in Shakespeare –and I’ve come to realize that he has them in almost all his plays; moments where we are taken out of the story briefly and presented with an idea, a new angle on things, and this lingers in our mind. In Henry VI Part 3, for instance, there is the speech of Henry reflecting on being a shepherd rather than a king, and this is the same sort of thing. It is part of what makes Shakespeare so great.

I find the character of Titus himself to be quite difficult to fully understand, and though I was able to follow the unfolding story of his misfortune with ease and have sympathy with him in the middle acts, he does to a certain extent bring the tragedy on himself through his treatment of the prisoners he brings back in the opening scenes –killing the eldest son of Queen Tamora, already severely pissed off at being conquered. Her lust for revenge is right up there with Queen Margaret in the previous play (Henry VI Part 3) and with such a capacity for cold-hearted viciousness she makes Lady Macbeth look like a pussy cat. Were just these two characters (Titus and Tamora) pitted against each other, it would be in a sense a fair fight, but the real tragedy of Titus Andronicus is that of the secondary characters, and none more so than Titus’ daughter Lavinia –surely one of Shakespeare’s most unfortunate characters: jilted by the Emperor; her true love killed; ravished by two men; hands cut off: tongue cut out; then finally to be stabbed and killed by her father –her story arc is nothing but woe. Though she has few lines (even when she still has her tongue), she is the human centre of the play. Famously she was played by Vivien Leigh in the 1955 RSC-production with husband Laurence Olivier playing Titus. This is by far the most well-known production of the play. There have been others, of course, but like the other Roman plays of Shakespeare it is not produced very often –its gruesomeness is not necessarily good box-office, and companies wanting to go down a bloody path tend to go for the safer (and shorter) Macbeth. Also, as an early Shakespeare play it is always going to get less attention than the works that follow. But, I stress again: it is gripping ”theatre”, even when read, so do give it a go –if you have a strong constitution.

In my next entry I shall be reviewing the 1999 film adaptation (Titus).

Favourite Line:

Lucius
Bur soft! me thinks I do digress too much,
Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me !
For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.
(Act V, Sc.III)

Character I would most like to play: Aaron