Why are pirates called pirates?

because they aaarrrrrree!

And so to Revenge-Tragedy. The villain is the villain and the virtuous get tried, tested and worked over. It’s almost pantomime with its colourful caricatures of good and evil. It cries out for actors to ham it up a little and to relish in the reactions of the audience. And so with Titus at the Globe.

Obviously my first reaction is to the verse and whether or not I can hear it. The yard is a great place to be but other spectators eager to keep their minds on the plot, inquiring of their knowledgable friends, when some matter of the argument is at hand. Annoying but to be expected.

What bothers me is when the actors colour their verse with their emotional play. And in this play as in many other revenge-tragedies, this distraction is in abundance and over-plus.

The role of Titus and his entire family demands they follow the built-in register. Just when you think the worst has happened, worse happens. Titus needs to pace his emotional ladder’s descent to despair for 3 Acts and then turn to thoughts of Revenge, a much lighter and more pro-active pleasure.

He is a cartoon character: from his 21 of 25 sons killed in the service of Rome. To the 22nd whom he murders himself in his slighted rage, and the 23rd and 24th whose severed heads are delivered back to him with his own ransom hand. (read the play to find out about the 25th)!

A wonderful evening of nastiness thus with the nature of the material. His daughter Lavinia is raped and mutilated; hands to stumps and tongue cut out. I see an ingenue actress asking her agent, ‘Is it a speaking part?’ Shakespeare must have hated the boy-actor who played it originally. A total humiliation is what’s demanded by the actor. Thankfully played by a girl this time around.

I personally believe Shakespeare was aware of the fact that women would eventually play the roles he wrote. Spain, Italy and France had women performers on Public stages.

‘And for a woman wert thou first created,
Til nature as she wrought thee, fell a-doting.’ Q20.

Oh yeah, Ben was mah-vellous! Genius! I particularly liked the way he played the severed head. And his transformation into the young Lucius! Wow!