BardFest's 'Titus Andronicus': Murder will out...and keep going toward the ridiculous

I took in my first ever trip through "Titus Andronicus" with more predispositions than I might like. Within the Shakespearean canon, I'm familiar with almost everything. But this early tragedy, famous as a gorefest and traditionally questioned as to the Bard's authorship, has been unknown to me, long resisted because of its low reputation. It was time to fill in that blank slate, so off I went Friday night to the premiere of this Indy Bard Fest production. 

The two academic Shakespeare essayists I've often relied upon for guidance and insight — Harold Goddard and Harold Bloom — are virtually dismissive of the play, each in his own distinctive manner. My reading of the text chimes in with the consensus that the Shakespearean stamp is firm in the play's language. So Shakespeare-lovers are prone to wonder, shaking their heads: Why, Will? What's the point here?

Sly dad Aaron cuddles his infant son.

The degree of adaptation that Matt Anderson, director of the current production at the Indy Eleven Theatre, publicly admits to is understandable. All Shakespeare directors are interpreters, potentially warping the text by cutting it and drawing highly personal conclusions about stagecraft and plot and character elements. A tragedy as bloody and narrowly focused as "Titus Andronicus" might tempt any of them to go beyond interpretation to some degree of rewriting, at least for the sake of shedding light for today's audiences on such a revolting example of Shakespeare's art.

A signal that the play's horrors are not to be taken seriously here greets the audience right away, with a table set for breakfast and including suggestively named mass-market cereals that foreshadow the climactic instance of surreptitious cannibalism as part of the title character's broadly applied revenge.

 The minor genre of revenge tragedy is a box out of which the young Shakespeare appears to have wrestled his way. Bloom looks at it as the burgeoning theater star's escape from Christopher Marlowe in both dramaturgy and fierce literary splendor in rolling iambic pentameter. It was a great career move, preparing the way long-term for the complexities of "Hamlet," which has a comparable body count in the final scene. 

When the war hero Titus Andronicus seeks redress for how three Goths, foolishly released from bondage, have ruined Rome, the game has long been afoot. An old saying has it that if you set out on a path of revenge, first dig two graves. Titus, maddened by the family toll of foreign and domestic politics, in effect  digs several. The role model is the payback scheme undertaken by the freed captive Gothic queen Tamora and her thuggish sons Demetrius and Charon.

The second act presents the most extraordinary outburst of consequences, setting against our likely lack of interest in the characters (except for the self-actualized villain Aaron) scenes that blend shock value and comic impact. On opening night, the struggle of Demetrius and Charon to wrest their infant half-brother from the arms of his father Aaron was a masterpiece of head-over-heels combat on the small stage, drawing oohs and ahs from the audience. Kudos goes to Kevin Robertson's fight choreography.

The UPS-style delivery of a box containing two severed heads and Titus' lopped-off left hand was a high point of grisly hilarity, including a required signature (by Titus' one remaining hand) and an iPhone photo of the delivery. Why not bring in a particularly zany anachronism (among several others), in addition to  acting styles that often cross over into parody and spoof? Indeed, it works.

My problem from the standpoint of simple enjoyment was to keep my appalled responses in check. Aren't people we can believe in up to a point highlighted as extraordinary evildoers and victims, whose actions and fates deserve to be registered on our pulses and even deeper? How ready can we be to see the playwright's hyperbolic presentation as bordering on ridiculous?

Most deserving of our sympathy is Lavinia, Titus' daughter, who suffers physical mayhem at the hands of

Lavinia has reasons to look apprehensive.

the vengeful brother Goths. Haley Glickman's performance would have stirred anyone with its authentic pathos. Those no-holds-barred brothers who violate her were played with distinctive comic gusto by Eli Robinson and J.B. Scoble.

The title character, nicely balancing our feelings for him as a victim in scenes of lamentation against his rather crazed campaign of revenge, gave the right impression of being swept into a maelstrom partly of his own making in the performance of Dan Flahive. In contrast, Nicholas Johnson carved a sculpted portrait in straightforward villainy as the outsider Moor Aaron. Holly Hathaway Thompson brought lip-smacking gusto to the role of Tamora, the lascivious Gothic queen with an agenda; she invested lots of commitment in the variety of her costuming as well.

There was some trouble with cues and fluency along the way, and the second act — despite some vivid moments — struggled to avoid tedium and overkill. But I hasten to add that much of the blame for that must be placed at Shakespeare's immortal feet. The production still merits a visit by anyone who can process horror and hilarity in due proportions, drawn in by curiosity about this glum corner of the canon.

[Photos by Indy Ghost Light]