Cast excel in blood-spattered fest that is not to be taken too seriously

Titus Andronicus

Progress Theatre

Monday, October 27

CHAINSAW dismemberment, fatal stabbings, amputation by butcher’s cleaver, strangulation and cannibalism as a final flourish: if that’s your thing you’ll find it in this very bloody Titus Andronicus. It’s described as Shakespeare’s goriest play and this production happily goes along with that.

As I watched I wondered how the same quill which penned such sparkling pieces as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and The Tempest could have come up with this blood-spattered fest. But maybe it wasn’t the same quill, or even mind.

Directors Matt Tully and Dan Clarke have gone full-on horror movie and deliberately so. The set is red and black, telling us from the outset that this is a redemption-free zone. The costumes are black or Klan-white for the baddies with punk accessories for some of the characters. The whole play is saturated with pop songs, rock and punk. The message is that nobody should take this exercise in malice and vengeance seriously, which, if we accept the premise, allows us some laugh-out-loud moments. And by the looks of it the bard, if it was him, he didn’t take it too seriously either. It’s one of his earliest plays, dating from 1591, and tells a violent tale of vengeance and domination in Imperial Rome. There’s no real poetry or insight, it’s mostly men and women wielding axes, swords, daggers and just the one chainsaw.

Once you realise that it’s not a great tragedy or romance, then it can be taken on its own terms and Progress have excelled.

Special mention goes to Emma Sterry’s Tamora, Amy Taulbut’s Lavinia, Jen Harper’s androgynous Aaron and especially Rachel Meyer’s Demetria and Eidean Taya’s Chiera.

Sterry was artful in her rage at seeing a daughter murdered but covering it with a veneer of loyalty and even love for the perpetrators in order to get her vengeance. Taulbut showed a huge range in starting as an innocent and loving girl through being ravaged and mutilated and finally left dumb and defeated, longing for death. Harper was dressed as either Beelzebub or Pan with horns coming from her head and she moved around inciting violence and rage.

Meyer and Taya, dressed as punks, managed to take male malice and make it very female and all the more demonic.

Also a mention for Tony Travis in the title role, who looked the part from the very beginning and has an imposing stage presence, which enabled him to command the space in the final minutes.

And his son, Lucius, played by Samuel Elliott, was exemplary in his stillness and delivery. John Goodman, playing Titus’s brother and apparent opposite, played the placator role sympathetically, never shouting, always controlled and thoughtful.

The directors wanted to recreate the atmosphere of an Eighties horror movie and they succeeded.

Mike Rowbottom