BWW Reviews: Mad Horse Theatre's TITUS ANDRONICUS Challenges Sensibilities

The brutality and barbarism of Shakespeare's early "revenge" play, Titus Andronicus, make it difficult fare for modern audiences. And yet, as director Stacey Koloski says about her staging at South Portland's Mad Horse Theatre Company: "Titus Andronicus shows the human cost to the cycle of war and violence." That the tragedy with all its on-stage atrocities may be "frighteningly relevant today" does not make the experience any less painful for the spectators. Yet despite its assault on our emotions and senses, the audience at the Mad Horse Theatre cannot help but be gripped and moved by what it witnesses.

Titus Andronicus (c.1594) was based on Senecan tragedy and on the Greek myth of Tantalus and catered to the Elizabethan taste for gore. In the course of over two hours nine corpses litter the stage; several dozen more are dispatched off-stage, and but for a handful of characters, everyone is capable of unspeakable savagery. This, in addition to the all too familiar stock characters like the villainous Moor, whom the early playwright treats as a negative racial stereotype, adds to audience discomfort. If there is anything which redeems the play and keeps it from being Coliseum fare, it is the fact that its central character, Titus, despite his fierce and unforgiving nature, rises to the ranks of a tragic hero. In Titus' downward spiral and his transformation from wronged Roman subject, to maddened, King Lear-like father, and finally to avenging Fury, we have the seeds of Shakespeare's later tragic heroes.

Stacey Koloski's direction is economical, fast paced, and tasteful in terms of blood and gore, at the same time that it makes no apology for the play's deeply flawed and all too human characters. This critic has seen productions of Titus Andronicus which have ranged from horror movie bloody to stylized Kabuki. Here Koloski uses minimal effects and lets Shakespeare's words convey the agony of events.

The scenic design by Corey Anderson employs archaic helmets and masks. With muted shades of blues, grays, and earth tones, he creates a stylized vision of antiquity and makes excellent use of the small black box performance space at Mad Horse Theatre's new home in the historic Hutchins school. Likewise, Anderson's simple, complementary palette of lights serviceably propels the action. James Herrera's costumes of indeterminate period opt to evoke character rather than historical milieu, and, for the most part, work remarkably well, though the men's contemporary button-down shirts strike a slightly incongruous note.

These strong production values aside, to win the audience's attention, the play must ride on the shoulders of a Titus about whom the audience cares. In the Mad Horse Theatre's production, Tony Reilly gives a monumental performance in the title role. His rich vocal attributes, ease in the verse, and intense emotional range make his suffering palpable. He also endows the character with chilling moments of a madman's humor, such as the scene where he berates his brother for killing a fly or his depraved delight in the cannibalistic banquet he serves to his enemies.

The entire ensemble is stalwart, and, with varying degrees of vocal weight, are mostly at home in the Shakespearean idiom. Particularly fine is J.P. Guimant as Lucius, Titus' son and one of the sole survivors of the bloodbath. As Titus' daughter Lavinia who must play an entire act without the use of her hands or voice, Kat Moraros does an admirable job as the ravaged victim. Creepy and serpentine are Erik Moody as Demetrius and Nicholas Schroeder as Chiron, the jackal-like sons of the scheming Tamora. Lascivious and bestial, they create frightening portraits of mindless cruelty. As the Goth queen-turned Roman empress, Christine Louise Marshall plays Tamora with a wily, manipulative authority, though one might wish for a little more seductive interplay with Saturninus and Aaron.

Mark Rubin's Marcus grows throughout the course of the drama. Meant to be Titus' older brother, he does not completely convey the age, though he projects effectively the Tribune's essential honesty and humanity - one of the few decent men in the entire play. In the role of the diabolical Moor Aaron, Joshua Hughes captures the Machiavellian aspects, but not the cold-blooded nihilism of the character. His reading of the verse is hampered by a colloquial accent that has little dramatic premise. Burke Brimmer is a regal, headstrong Saturninus, who easily overmatches Jordan Handren-Seavey's gentle Bassianus, and young Owen Freeman turns in a promising cameo as Titus' distraught grandson, Lucius.

In the final scene Shakespeare chose to end his tragedy with only this young man, his father Lucius, and Marcus still alive and pointing to a new order. And it is here that director Koloski makes an interesting and subtle staging decision; she has the new tribune Lucius hold in his arms the condemned Moor's infant son - a tiny, redeeming respite from the hatred and violence of the previous two-and-one-half hours.

The Mad Horse theatre Company's Titus Andronicus is a bold choice of repertoire, designed to challenge the sensibilities and grip the emotions. That is does so with visceral force is tribute not only to the raw power of Shakespeare's play, but also to its startling modernity. Some two thousand years after the Romans and some five centuries after Shakespeare, it reminds us, as powerful theatre can, that we still live in a world where prejudice, death, and destruction are all too present.

Titus Andronicus runs June 6-23, 2013 at the Mad Horse Theatre Company, 24 Mosher St., South Portland, ME. 207-730-2389. www.madhorse.com

Photo Credits: Courtesy Mad Horse Theatre Company

To post a comment, you must register and login.