Redtwist Theatre’s “Titus Andronicus,” with Anne Sheridan Smith/Photo: Tom McGrath, TCMcGPhotography
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After a wild performance of “Titus Andronicus” at Edgewater’s Redtwist Theatre, a departing patron slipped on blood splattered in the aisle. No harm done—her companion kept her upright. But here’s some advice: If you see “Titus Andronicus,” wear washable clothes and shoes with a good tread.
Here’s more advice: Go see “Titus Andronicus” at Redtwist Theatre. It’s a shocking, energetic and muscular version of Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, filled with gore, excellent stage violence, dark humor and clear readings of the text. It’s also an argument for performing the play, once so despised that there’s no record of it being staged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is well suited for our own sanguinary and irrational era. If you are a “Game of Thrones” fan, you’ll find its precedent here.
The story is about the family and bad fortune of Titus (Anne Sheridan Smith), a Roman general just back from war with the Goths. Titus brings prisoners, including Tamora, queen of the Goths (Laura Sturm), her sons Chiron and Demetrius (Elijah Newman and Quinn Leary), and her lover Aaron (James Lewis). The emperor Saturninus (Joshua Servantez) marries Tamora, who wants revenge on Titus. A cycle of violence begins, including the rape of Titus’ daughter, Lavinia (Caroline Kidwell).
Directed by Dusty Brown in an adaptation by Brown, Jordan Gleaves and Kidwell, the show runs at a brisk two hours (plus an intermission). Some characters and deaths are cut. The adaptation switches genders for the characters of Titus, Marcus (Sabine Wan) and Bassianus, with Lavinia calling Titus “mother” instead of “father.” The transposition works well and does not overly distort the text.
Redtwist Theatre’s “Titus Andronicus,” with Madelyn Loehr and Sabine Wan/Photo: Tom McGrath, TCMcGPhotography
The entire action takes place on and around a long, faux-marble-topped table, which also serves as a burial pit—open the table and in go the bodies. This clever design by Eric Luchen could be a solution for a contentious family Thanksgiving. Also ingenious are the stage battles—when Lucius (Philip C. Matthews) punches Aaron in the face, it sounded and looked so real that people in the audience gasped. Violence and intimacy directors Michael Dias and Erin Sheets are doing magic in a tiny space.
This is Shakespeare, so the language must matter more than the action. And the language is delivered well, particularly by Lewis. Aaron is Black and thus an outsider in this world. His character is like the Joker in “Batman”—he wants to watch it all burn and contrives most of the play’s mischief. He also has depths of affection and sorrow, and the charismatic Lewis delivers the full measure of Aaron’s poetry.
Also good are Sturm as the lascivious, scheming Tamora, Kidwell as poor Lavinia and Madelyn Loehr as “Ensemble”—meaning Bassianus and every secondary character that gets murdered. Loehr wears white coveralls pre-decorated with blood stains, perhaps to save on the nonprofit theater’s laundry bill.
As Titus, Smith is proud and maternal, at first seeming a little too nice for the stuff her character does. But Smith credibly depicts the old general’s growing madness—once she starts carving up a fly on the table, we can believe every crazy thing she does.
At first, I was annoyed by the jokiness of some line readings—the emphasis on “cunt” in “country,” for example, or pronouncing the name “Bassianus” as “Bossy-Anus.” It seemed so schoolyard, so vulgar, so… exactly like the way the U.S. President talks about his rivals. Seen in this way, the readings are distressingly true to life.
“Titus Andronicus” runs through March 30 at Redtwist Theatre, 1044 West Bryn Mawr. Showtimes: Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm; and Sunday at 3:30pm. Tickets are $35, available at RedtwistTheatre.org.
