Abstract
Blanche McIntyre’s pleasingly visceral production of Titus Andronicus is not simply an obligatory inclusion in the RSC’s summer extravaganza of Roman tragedy, but an adroit performance of Shakespeare’s most maligned tragedy in the context of current political anxieties. Making the way to my seat I was surprised to be passed by a hooded man, hurriedly pushing a woman in a shopping trolley that wildly careered off the other side of the stage. Sprinting after them, two riot police with truncheons and stab vests. Choreographed clashes between gangs, police and the innocent came and went before the impressive edifice of the Capitol Building, an inaccessible, iron-fenced construction of glass and concrete. Inscribed on its facade, the motto ‘SPQR’ (Senatus Populusque Romanus) could just have easily been replaced by recent political slogans such as ‘Strong and Stable’ or ‘Make America Great Again’. Unifying the confusion and brutality of McIntyre’s prelude, an overture of radio news broadcasts, and distant shouts, interwoven by the staccato thumps of helicopter blades and intensifying bass beats, provided added urgency and auditory referents to the modern sociopolitical perspectives of the production.
Juxtaposed with this fractured and politically divided backdrop was the entrance of David Troughton’s Titus. A brass military band led the solemn march of the General and his remaining sons, in black military parade uniforms, bearing the funeral urns of their fallen family to the altar-like dais. This centrally located and elevated crypt, bearing the remains of all his other sons sacrificed in Rome’s many conflicts, served as an ironic memento mori – presaging the glut of corpses to come as well as the futility of such acts of sacrifice on behalf of an unstable institution. Troughton’s Titus is very much a product of the system he has devoted 40 years and 20 children to. Pragmatic, pious and proud, he is as unflinching in his placing his sons’ remains in the crypt as in the sacrifice of Alarbus, only the slight shake of his gloved right hand betraying his age. Notably, it is this same tremulous hand that escapes amputation, successfully dispatching Mutius, Chiron, Demetrius, Lavinia and Tamora, steady in the serving of the final macabre meal.
However, it was Nia Gwynne’s Queen of the Goths that truly managed to plumb new depths of grief, rage and simmering vengeance, eclipsing her fellow revenger. There was never any doubt who was in charge, with Tamora every bit an empowered empress capable of giving Lucrezia Borgia a run for her money. Exuding control, the diabolical puppeteer used her sexuality, fecundity, deviousness and sheer magisterial presence to manipulate nearly everyone with whom she came into contact. Waving an X-BOX game controller before Saturninus as a means to pacify him she punned, ‘bury all thy fears in my devices’ (4.4.111). Affected hurt and indignation suffusing her every word, Gwynne’s convincing Tamora effortlessly goaded her sons into diabolical revenge.
For a production that rarely put a foot wrong, there was evidence of the director’s struggle to balance levity with tragedy, comedy with pathos. In a play that brims with gallows humour and black jests, there is little need for embellishment, yet McIntyre often slipped in additional visual gags. ‘Selfie’ photos, ‘DeliveRoma’/Deliveroo cyclists, Mexican hats, Lucius and his ridiculous attempts to strike his triangle in time with the band, and then his passing a baby to an audience member while delivering judgement on Aaron, reduced potentially emotive scenes to bathetic farce. The scene of Tamora’s physical manifestation of Revenge (replete with shield and spear) was an inexplicable departure from the production’s previously sound form. Shuffling onto the stage in a cardboard box that had seen previous service transporting a fridge, Titus (naked?) was circled by the exaggerated furies. Chiron and Demetrius, with stockings over their heads, bore their mother aloft, inverting the historical stage directions (Titus [Aloft]), condensing the scene to absurdity, and leaving the audience somewhat confused over what they had just witnessed.
Where this production succeeded is in its strikingly vivid depictions of violence. A previous performance had already resulted in the play stopping while an unconscious playgoer was taken to the safety of the St John’s Ambulance. No scarlet ribbons here, just vats of red corn syrup and a barrowload of rubber heads and limbs. Titus was graphically disarticulated onstage, Tamora’s sons hung by their feet and unemotionally bled like livestock into an enamel basin, later to have their faces pulled from a massive pie dish as their mother gags and wretches. The ‘pie scene’ collapsed magnificently into what appeared to be the aftermath of a Tarantino New Year’s party at an abattoir. Another of the more successful visual liberties was the ever-increasing presence of the dead – a silent reminder of the tally the revengers were taking on the dwindling cast. As the body count rose the bloody and dismembered shades hovered at the edges of the set, materializing in the windows of the Capitol Building, the ghosts of Quintus and Martius wordlessly assisting in the grisly murders of Tamora’s reprobate progeny. The final scene of Lucius’ command for Tamora’s body to be thrown to the crows was with the spectre of Alarbus reaching for Lucius’ throat, suggesting the perpetuity of violence in maintaining empire.
Has Titus Andronicus finally had the renaissance it deserves? Have the shadows of Victorian and Edwardian propriety and bowdlerism finally retreated to allow audiences to revel in the sheer magnitude of violence, depravity and despotic mayhem that is Shakespeare’s first foray into revenge tragedy? Or is it that a steady stream of gratuitous violence in entertainment media coupled to the all too familiar scenes of religious and racial violence and recent acts of terror has inured the public to the play? Certainly, the growing bewilderment over political developments on both sides of the Atlantic resonates with the shifting allegiances and Machiavellian manoeuvring of Titus. As Marcus took the podium following the massacre, his address, ‘you sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome’ (5.3.66) was directed at the audience, and could just have easily substituted ‘sons of Rome’ with ‘Britons’, ‘Americans’ or any other national group striving to maintain a distinct identity.
Jonathan Freedland’s article in the programme hinted that the production would tackle the subject of contemporary barbarism and institutional corruption and the performance’s preface raised these expectations even higher. From Marcus Cicero to Ernst Rohm, political activists being betrayed by their own institution is no new phenomenon, and McIntyre’s set and production emphasized that the Rome built with the blood of the Andronici was the self-same institution that spat them out. However, gags and gore often overshadowed politics and pathos, suggesting a directorial decision to push props over performance. The result was a sensory romp and visual spectacle that at times obscured nuances and sentiment in blood and humour.