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The set is sleek: all grey and white marble surfaces and opaque glass doors. But an ominous gurgling sound rumbles in the background as you take your seats at Stratford’s Swan Theatre. Worse, there’s a gutter around the stage and front row spectators are issued with blankets to protect them from the blood. This is Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s notoriously violent play. The Rome portrayed here is built on brutal conquest and, beneath the glossy veneer of civilisation, the place seethes with animal instincts, murderous discontent and the visceral desire for revenge. Joanna Scotcher’s clinical design soon resembles an abattoir.
Max Webster’s new RSC staging — very grim, very gory, very good — is modern dress: Simon Russell Beale’s excellent general Titus arrives in a grey overcoat. But Webster doesn’t reference any specific contemporary conflict, instead letting the play’s shocking resonance speak for itself. And what becomes plain here, as one atrocity piles upon another, is that brutality begets brutality, cruelty often comes disguised as “honour” and violence is a one-way street to hell.
When the victorious Titus ignores the desperate pleas of captive queen Tamora to spare her son — instead mercilessly hewing him apart and ceremoniously burning his bones in front of her — he sets in motion a hideous cycle of vengeance. Wendy Kweh’s compelling Tamora hammers her grief into icy, determined rage, and, having caught the eye and hand in marriage of Joshua James’s creepily fascistic Emperor Saturninus, uses her newly found power to exact payback.
Soon the horrors are piling high, culminating, famously, in cannibalism. It’s interesting that Shakespeare often reserves his greatest condemnation for what we would now describe as war crimes: the slaughter of civilians, the murder of children, the rape of women. Webster deals well with the violence, using a mix of anticipation and clever lighting (Lee Curran) to deliver the impact without being sensational. Occasionally this produces a brief moment of gallows humour — as Aaron the Moor heaves on pulleys, snaps on rubber gloves and revs a huge chainsaw, Elon Musk-style, the audience giggles nervously. But the atrocities hit home, never more so than when Titus’s ravaged and mutilated daughter Lavinia (Letty Thomas) is dragged on to stage on a bloodied plastic sheet, a terrible, silent mass.
Her piteous story is at the heart of this production, which foregrounds the importance of children as the impetus for much of the anguished desire for vengeance. We become very aware of young Lucius (played by Tristan Arthur on opening night), Titus’s grandson, who is exposed to so many horrors that he ends by joining in.
Performances are strong across the board, with Emma Fielding commanding as Marcia, Titus’s sister (brother in the original), and Natey Jones outstanding as Aaron, a man hardened into cynicism after his endless experience of racist abuse and oppression. Russell Beale finds rich depth, pity and madness in Titus. And while the crew come on with squeegees to clear up at the end, the message is clear: the bloodstains are not consigned to history.
★★★★☆
To June 7, rsc.org.uk
