William Houston in Titus Andronicus
Copyright Simon Kane
However, whilst sickening, the gore in Titus did not make me react adversely unlike two people who fainted at the moment when Lavinia appears tongue and armless but, other than that, little activity was seen in the crowd. It was a very different experience on stage, however, with about 5 deaths a second, it certainly is not for the faint hearted.
The actors, as always with the Globe, were on shining form with the best performance coming from Flora Spencer-Longhurst giving an all- out, scarily realistic portrayal of Lavinia. It must be one of Shakespeare's most challenging roles, having to convey a variety of emotions throughout the play without using verbal communication. It takes a huge amount of skill to pull this off well and this young actress does it superbly. Other highlights include the creepy, almost phsycopathic Titus played by William Houston as well as Aaron being performed remarkably well by Obi Abli. Whilst it seemed to play more to the seats rather than the groundlings, which were tossed about quite a lot throughout, disgruntling a few, I think this small fault is not too detrimental to the production as a whole. The thing that goes against the play is that the level of gore throughout means that there is little time to empathize with the characters and therefore cannot feel any emotion towards any deaths that occur, even in the tragic denouement. This goes some way to explaining why Titus is not part of the repertoire frequently used on stage. However, it is still terrific to see a good bloodbath on British theatre and is a nice change to what the Globe usually produce. That being said, I can't say that I would have the stomach to watch too many more shows with this much gore.
Titus Andronicus is playing at Shakespeare's Globe until 13th July
Renowned for it's gore, the revival of Bailey's 2006 production of Titus Andronicus has had people fainting and vomitting throughout. This has attracted great deals of media attraction which made me feel apprehensive, not being the bravest of people.
However, whilst sickening, the gore in Titus did not make me react adversely unlike two people who fainted at the moment when Lavinia appears tongue and armless but, other than that, little activity was seen in the crowd. It was a very different experience on stage, however, with about 5 deaths a second, it certainly is not for the faint hearted.
The actors, as always with the Globe, were on shining form with the best performance coming from Flora Spencer-Longhurst giving an all- out, scarily realistic portrayal of Lavinia. It must be one of Shakespeare's most challenging roles, having to convey a variety of emotions throughout the play without using verbal communication. It takes a huge amount of skill to pull this off well and this young actress does it superbly. Other highlights include the creepy, almost phsycopathic Titus played by William Houston as well as Aaron being performed remarkably well by Obi Abli. Whilst it seemed to play more to the seats rather than the groundlings, which were tossed about quite a lot throughout, disgruntling a few, I think this small fault is not too detrimental to the production as a whole. The thing that goes against the play is that the level of gore throughout means that there is little time to empathize with the characters and therefore cannot feel any emotion towards any deaths that occur, even in the tragic denouement. This goes some way to explaining why Titus is not part of the repertoire frequently used on stage. However, it is still terrific to see a good bloodbath on British theatre and is a nice change to what the Globe usually produce. That being said, I can't say that I would have the stomach to watch too many more shows with this much gore.
Titus Andronicus is playing at Shakespeare's Globe until 13th July
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