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The set is elegant: all gray and white marble surfaces and opaque glass doors. But a disturbing gourmoning sound rumbles in the background while you take care of the Stratford Swan Theater. Worse, there is a gutter around the stage and the spectators at the front row receive covers to protect them from blood. It is Titus AndronicusShakespeare's notoriously violent game. Rome portrayed here is built on a brutal conquest and, under the brilliant veneer of civilization, the place bubbles with animal instincts, murderous dissatisfaction and the visceral desire for revenge. Joanna Scotche's clinical design quickly resembles a slaughterhouse.
The new RSC staging of Max Webster – very dark, very bloody, very good – is a modern dress: the excellent general Titus by Simon Russell Beale arrives in a gray overcoat. But Webster does not refer to any specific contemporary conflict, leaving the shocking resonance of the play to speak of itself. And what becomes clear here, while an atrocity accumulates on another is that brutality generates brutality, cruelty is often disguised as “honor” and violence is a one -way street in hell.
When the victorious Titus ignores the desperate pleadings of the queen captive Tamora to save her son – instead, he separates him mercilessly and burning his bones in front of her – he triggers a hideous cycle of revenge. Convincing Tamora of Wendy Kweh Marta her sorrow in an icy and determined rage and, having attracted the eye and the hand in the marriage of the frightening fascist emperor of Joshua James Saturninus, uses his newly found power for exact reimbursement.
Soon, horrors accumulate, culminating, famous, in cannibalism. It is interesting to note that Shakespeare often reserves his greatest conviction for what we would now describe as war crimes: the slaughter of civilians, the murder of children, the rape of women. Webster treats violence well, using a mixture of anticipation and intelligent lighting (Lee Curran) to offer the impact without being sensational. Sometimes it produces a brief moment of gallows humor – like Aaron, the moor lifts on the pulleys, appears on rubber gloves and turns a huge chainsaw, the Elon Musk style, the audience shouts nervously. But the atrocities struck at home, never more than when the ravaged and mutilated girl of Titus Lavinia (Letty Thomas) is dragged to stage on a bloody plastic sheet, a terrible and silent mass.
Its pitiful history is at the heart of this production, which highlights the importance of children as the impetus of a large part of the anxious desire for revenge. We become very aware of the young Lucius (played by Tristan Arthur during the opening evening), the grandson of Titus, who is exposed to so many horrors that he ends by joining himself.
The performances are strong at all levels, with Emma who commands Marcia, the sister of Titus (brother in the original), and Natey Jones exceptional as an Aaron, a man has hardened in cynicism after his endless racist abuse and oppression. Russell Beale finds a rich depth, pity and madness in Titus. And while the crew sees with raclettes to clear up at the end, the message is clear: blood spots are not recorded in history.
★★★★ ☆
As of June 7, rsc.org.uk
