Usually, I come up with an overall theme for a piece and weave anything I have to say around that idea. For the Theatre Downtown version of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, I don’t think I can do it. Instead, here’s a mishmash of thoughts and ideas from my visit. Maybe there’s a common thread in there.
ONE – We don’t remember days, we remember moments. I had a good friend just get back from her spring break trip to Colorado and California. In telling me about it, it was very natural for her to express her travels in terms of instances. I saw THIS, we did THIS, and THIS happened. In the same way, we don’t remember full plays or performances, we remember moments. For Titus Andronicus, which Wikipedia (currently) describes as, “By far Shakespeare’s bloodiest work,” I’ll remember the moment we first see Lavinia onstage with both hands cut off and her tongue cut out. These unforgettable moments, however, couldn’t happen and simply don’t work without all the other stuff.
TWO – After we see Livinia bleeding from the mouth with her hands missing, I think Shakespeare repeatedly badgers us with words that invoke these body parts. “Gentle Livinia, let me kiss thy lips.” Brilliant manipulation. Or maybe it’s like the phenomenon of learning a new word and you start to see it everywhere.
THREE – Susan Cook’s performance as Livinia got better from the moment she was no longer able to talk. This isn’t an insult. Actors must recognize that tiny vocalizations like squeaks or breaths or whimpers, obviously not in the script, can be like emotional bowling balls. Shakespeare provided the foundation, but these tiny moments of frustration and anguish were as genuinely moving as anything else I’ve seen on stage. I felt robbed, though, that Livinia’s Daddy didn’t throw his arms around her when they reunited after her ordeal. I wanted the image of her blood all over him.
FOUR – As the other side of the dramatic coin, Nick Crawford as Saturninus also wonderfully filled the space and put life in between the words. The text in Shakespeare can be so dense (and the words themselves have acquired so much weight through the years) that this can be difficult to remember. An actor’s tongue is so involved, up on the Bard’s pointe shoes, that an actor can forget all the other stuff. Saturninus is an arrogant and smarmy jackass and we knew that from about ten seconds in.
FIVE – Tim Childers stole all three of his scenes, even in small roles. If there’s any place to ham it up, it’s Shakespeare. Or the theatre as a whole for that matter. Characters and personalities should be big. There are no close-ups on a stage. Plus, big personalities give everybody else an opportunity to bounce.
SIX – With as much emphasis as can be placed on Shakespeare’s language, it’s important to remember that theatre isn’t generally about the words. Blasphemy and heresy, right? But my friend in Washington, DC, recently saw a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken” by an Indian theater company. The whole thing was performed in Manipuri, an Indian dialect. The director made a choice to translate very little for the mainstream audience and, accordingly, tons of them walked out. The director explained later that he felt he provided the play’s essence, but didn’t want the English translation to become too distracting from any on-stage performance. It was apparently beautiful once you could accept that you had to intuit some parts for yourself.
At its core, theatre is mostly dance and singing. Movement borders on dance and voices seem like song. Vowels inflect and a person is what he does. Good acting tells the story without words. When we meet people, I believe we listen more to how they talk and how they move, rather than to what they’re saying. People talk and move differently. I struggle to remember your name after that first handshake because my mind is so busy subconsciously processing everything else there is to learn. When movement is good, a show gets much more entertaining. The way that characters touch one another – or choose not to – is very important. At its worst, bad body language can be confusing and difficult to watch. I’d love to hear that a Theatre Downtown director had asked a dancer or choreographer to offer advice during rehearsals as to how the quality of movement might be improved.
SEVEN – Speaking of quality of movement, Sylvester Little Jr. was the standout of this performance as Aaron, one of the evillest and most despicable characters in all of theatre. Easily the straw that stirs the drink. It’s fun to be the bad guy – and it must be a delight to be this good at it. “If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.” I agree with these guys saying that this quote may be “the vilest ‘screw you’ in literary history.” It drips with venom.
EIGHT – The decision to make the Goths, well, Goths, worked. As a visual pun, it was funny. As a costuming choice, it was effective in keeping these groups separate. Then, it was well-played as straight through to the end.
NINE – The play teaches that it’s a very bad idea just to marry whoever you happen to like on any given day. Or that the consquences of marriage can be important if you’re the Emporer. And that the thought of a white girl (or a white guy in drag, back in the day) with a Moor has titillated audiences for centuries. “Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life.” “Is black so base a hue?”
TEN – The choice of music at Theatre Downtown is frequently brilliant and I always look forward to seeing the music direction in the next show. I’d love to see even more integration of the music into the shows. Or integration of theatre into the music. A live pre-show, intermission, or during-the-show performer?
ELEVEN – Moments involving anger, sadness, grief, or madness are often best played straight. Angry people often stew and get quieter, not louder. People speaking of sadness or grief often flatten without bawling through it. And the craziest people often say the most outrageous things as if they were absolutely ordinary.
As always, all gratefulness to Billy Ray Brewton and Theatre Downtown for producing a 400-year-old play that still pushes boundaries.
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