Titus Andronicus
Apr. 25th, 2007 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThis weekend I caught one of the last performances of ASP's Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare, of course). As always, I enjoyed their production, though it didn't exactly make me happy to see it.
Following their tradition of using nontraditional spaces, it was in the basement of the Garage (an odd shopping not-mall building in Harvard Square), which meant that the space was in the round (well, rectangle), with a number of columns blocking different parts of the stage from different angles, and the ceiling was quite low, so lighting was more of a challenge. They strung up some little lights on stage, as well as having some on the edges and corners of the plinth, and used some interesting spotlights, including one coming through a window to the staircase. They'd painted the cement walls with tigers and small drips of 'blood,' and that was the only even vaguely realistic blood in the show. (Side note: I'd played a game of Carcassonne Hunters and Gatherers not long before, so I kept wondering whether the tigers had already eaten all the deer.)
In fact, this was a done as a play of water and stone. They used no stage blood, just water, sometimes copious amounts of it. It was clear (*ahem*) what was intended, without graphic red splashing. And the rocks around the column were multipurpose, changing from weapons to parts of a shrine to a way of indication loss of hand(s) when clasped to a swaddled baby. Again, a way to focus on the story rather than on the gore, however much the gore was one of the big attractions when it first came out.
The stage was a wooden plinth, one major column with an open circle around it, the others fully enclosed at their bases. The major one was also encircled by irregularly-sized rocks. There were some ropes tied to the columns higher up, and that was it for the set. There were some props, a couple of books, a table and some chairs, and so on, but they were minimal, focusing on the essence of the story.
I first saw this play towards the end of last year, at Wellesley. That was, not surprisingly, an all-female production. This one, in contrast, was all male (read: much with the eye candy). The females wore pale dresses (the men were mostly in dark colors), and had shaved heads. It sort of worked: the actors were quite good, and the costumes effective, but they just didn't move as women, Lavinia more so than Tamora (John Kuntz). I'm glad I got my initial exposure to the bloody plot previously, so I could focus more on nuances this time (I can't really read plays; like poetry, they don't enter my brain the right way to be absorbed as straight fiction does.), but it did set me up with some expectations. The biggest one was that I'd assumed Lavinia would be played more as a victim needing counseling and care; somehow this Lavinia was too cool for that. Marcus helped her, but it didn't feel as absolutely necessary.
This Titus was more in control, even when his anger took over. He wasn't insane when sent arrows up to the gods (paper airplanes into the audience), but planning how to get revenge on Lavinia's attackers, knowing it would be better to be seen as incompetent than a possible enemy. Perhaps that is part of why the pie scene just wasn't that horrible (it was also partly obscured from where I sat, so that made it easier as well). He was also a loving father putting his daughter out of her misery when he killed her. Speaking of which: I realized it doesn't ring true about Lavinia's hands being cut off, because if she's literate enough to write her attackers' names down, then she should be literate enough to write them in the sand with her foot. And they left those. Not that I believe someone with her injuries would likely have survived long with contemporary (lack of) medicine, either.
I still can't wrap my brain around Aaron; he's too unmitigatedly evil, not a real person at all. The only human thing he does is love his son, but all else is murder and mayhem, for kicks. The other Shakespeare outsiders, Othello and Shylock, at least start off human before turning one-dimensional.
Queen of the Goths Tamora's sons Chiron and Demetrius were more punk kids than goth, which worked. I saw them as out-of-control teen boys egged on to greater crimes, which kept them from fighting with each other even more.
As before, Marcus was the one truly sympathetic character. And Saturninus just seemed willful and stupid about politics, ignoring the facts of the situation he'd inherited by Andronicus' grace, turning to bite the hand that had fed him.
Not my favorite of his plays, by a long shot, but not my least, either. It would be interesting to use it as a basis for discussion about cycles of revenge and how to interrupt them in societies so focused on individual honor.
I'm glad they added another play to the season; ending with the silliness of Love's Labor's Lost will be better. They're doing it in this same space, with only six actors; that ought to be interesting. (And next year's schedule is four also. I win.)
Following their tradition of using nontraditional spaces, it was in the basement of the Garage (an odd shopping not-mall building in Harvard Square), which meant that the space was in the round (well, rectangle), with a number of columns blocking different parts of the stage from different angles, and the ceiling was quite low, so lighting was more of a challenge. They strung up some little lights on stage, as well as having some on the edges and corners of the plinth, and used some interesting spotlights, including one coming through a window to the staircase. They'd painted the cement walls with tigers and small drips of 'blood,' and that was the only even vaguely realistic blood in the show. (Side note: I'd played a game of Carcassonne Hunters and Gatherers not long before, so I kept wondering whether the tigers had already eaten all the deer.)
In fact, this was a done as a play of water and stone. They used no stage blood, just water, sometimes copious amounts of it. It was clear (*ahem*) what was intended, without graphic red splashing. And the rocks around the column were multipurpose, changing from weapons to parts of a shrine to a way of indication loss of hand(s) when clasped to a swaddled baby. Again, a way to focus on the story rather than on the gore, however much the gore was one of the big attractions when it first came out.
The stage was a wooden plinth, one major column with an open circle around it, the others fully enclosed at their bases. The major one was also encircled by irregularly-sized rocks. There were some ropes tied to the columns higher up, and that was it for the set. There were some props, a couple of books, a table and some chairs, and so on, but they were minimal, focusing on the essence of the story.
I first saw this play towards the end of last year, at Wellesley. That was, not surprisingly, an all-female production. This one, in contrast, was all male (read: much with the eye candy). The females wore pale dresses (the men were mostly in dark colors), and had shaved heads. It sort of worked: the actors were quite good, and the costumes effective, but they just didn't move as women, Lavinia more so than Tamora (John Kuntz). I'm glad I got my initial exposure to the bloody plot previously, so I could focus more on nuances this time (I can't really read plays; like poetry, they don't enter my brain the right way to be absorbed as straight fiction does.), but it did set me up with some expectations. The biggest one was that I'd assumed Lavinia would be played more as a victim needing counseling and care; somehow this Lavinia was too cool for that. Marcus helped her, but it didn't feel as absolutely necessary.
This Titus was more in control, even when his anger took over. He wasn't insane when sent arrows up to the gods (paper airplanes into the audience), but planning how to get revenge on Lavinia's attackers, knowing it would be better to be seen as incompetent than a possible enemy. Perhaps that is part of why the pie scene just wasn't that horrible (it was also partly obscured from where I sat, so that made it easier as well). He was also a loving father putting his daughter out of her misery when he killed her. Speaking of which: I realized it doesn't ring true about Lavinia's hands being cut off, because if she's literate enough to write her attackers' names down, then she should be literate enough to write them in the sand with her foot. And they left those. Not that I believe someone with her injuries would likely have survived long with contemporary (lack of) medicine, either.
I still can't wrap my brain around Aaron; he's too unmitigatedly evil, not a real person at all. The only human thing he does is love his son, but all else is murder and mayhem, for kicks. The other Shakespeare outsiders, Othello and Shylock, at least start off human before turning one-dimensional.
Queen of the Goths Tamora's sons Chiron and Demetrius were more punk kids than goth, which worked. I saw them as out-of-control teen boys egged on to greater crimes, which kept them from fighting with each other even more.
As before, Marcus was the one truly sympathetic character. And Saturninus just seemed willful and stupid about politics, ignoring the facts of the situation he'd inherited by Andronicus' grace, turning to bite the hand that had fed him.
Not my favorite of his plays, by a long shot, but not my least, either. It would be interesting to use it as a basis for discussion about cycles of revenge and how to interrupt them in societies so focused on individual honor.
I'm glad they added another play to the season; ending with the silliness of Love's Labor's Lost will be better. They're doing it in this same space, with only six actors; that ought to be interesting. (And next year's schedule is four also. I win.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-25 10:08 pm (UTC)Shakespeare obviously had some really wacked out moments...
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Date: 2007-04-25 10:36 pm (UTC)The actual play is a challenge, but the ideas of what's acceptable when two cultures run smack into each other (Titus' sacrifice of Tamora's eldest is theoretically required by the church/state; it wasn't just wanton death, and yet it triggers cycles of revenge worthy of a pretty messy Greek tragedy) are always going to be interesting. On the other hand, there are parts of the plot that just don't hang together well.