Displaying items by tag: TITUS ANDRONICUS

I reviewed TITUS ANDRONICUS in mid-February, so I was eager to see the sequel!

In TITUS, Shakespeare tells the story from the viewpoint of the regnant major characters: Empress Tamora and her sons Chiron, Demetrius and Bassianus; Lucius and the unlucky Lavinia, progeny of Titus Andronicus himself. GARY occurs immediately after that sensationally gruesome tale and tells the story from behind the green baize doors: two very lowly servants are charged with cleaning up the mess of bloody bodies strewn thither and yon. Let me stress, however, that one need not have seen TITUS previously; GARY works just fine as a stand-alone.

Gary (brilliantly played by William Delforge) is a servant who aspires to the lofty status of Fool and wistfully dresses the part. His BFF (tho she may not agree!) is the maid Janice (Hannah Rhode), less imaginative but patently more astute than Gary. We encounter one old friend from TITUS: the delicious Cameron Austin Brown as Carole, the midwife who delivered Empress Tamora’s baby, which was instantly and inarguably seen to have been fathered by the Moor Aaron (James Lewis). Inexplicably, Carol survives the resulting collieshangle [great word, yeah? Means donnybrook or argy-bargy. Aren’t words fun then?] to reappear in the midst of the (very) bloody task of tidying up the corpses littering the palace.

So, the plot being fairly straightforward, I choose now to focus on the playwright, Taylor Mac, who uses the pronoun ‘judy’, a personalized pronoun for someone whose gender (professionally and personally) is constantly changing. Judy describes GARY as ‘a tragedy determined to become a comedy’ – a definition I can absolutely get next to! Mac’s (absolutely fabulous) bio provides a simple list of judy’s achievements, which include: a MacArthur “genius”, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a Tony nominee for Best Play, and the recipient of the International Ibsen Award, the Kennedy Prize, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, a Drama League Award, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, two Obie’s, and two Bessies. Whew! Judy’s webmaster has a lot of work keeping judy’s website current!

And how lucky are we to live in Chicago, where Redtwist Theatre is mounting a production of this extraordinary phenomenal deviant unorthodox outlandish bizarre freakish mind-boggling peculiar implausible superlative disruptive … well, I (obviously) could go on and on – god how I love word hippo’s thesaurus! What I’m trying to say is I really really liked the show, but it’s unquestionably not for everyone. Don’t take your grandma to see GARY, and please don’t bring the kids! And BTW, don’t worry about the blood splashing – Redtwist will provide a water-repellant poncho upon request.

OK, that’s the playwright, let’s move on. The remainder of the production team is familiar to those of us who frequent Redtwist Theatre.

Director Steve Scott: Steve has been around; he’s a member of the Redtwist ensemble and served as producer at Goodman Theatre for more than thirty years. For three decades Steve taught at Chicago College of Fine Arts at Roosevelt University. He has received six Jeff nominations, an After Dark Award, a special Jeff Award for career achievement, and the League of Chicago Theaters’ Lifetime Achievement Award.  So … Steve knows what he’s about, but with a production so labyrinthine as GARY, he welcomed aid from Assistant Director Korey Joseph and Technical Director Jeff Brain.

Dusty Brown is another familiar name; they served as Dramaturg and Sound Designer for GARY. Fight Choreographer Seth Eggenschwiller was excited to continue prioritizing actor safety alongside hard-hitting theatrical violence. The lighting for GARY was complex and superbly executed by Lighting Designer Piper Kirchhofer.

Props Designer Robin Manganaro loves working with teams and stories that represent BIPOC, neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ perspectives; definitely the case with GARY at Redtwist.  I imagine (and certainly hope) Costume Designer kClare McKellaston (yet another familiar name!) had real fun with the costumes for GARY – and they came out absolutely fabulous!

Scenic Designer Eric Luchen also did a marvelous job with the scanty space he had to work in at Redtwist; remember the splash warnings! Luchen was most recently awarded the Conda Award for Excellence in Scenic Design for his production of ‘Mary Poppins’ in Newcastle, Australia.

One is at times sitting mere inches from the action – only an excellent and very professional cast could keep from overbalancing and falling into someone’s lap! this contiguity made interaction with the audience well-nigh unavoidable; people were given beads, and during a long oration I was able to slip a mint to Hannah Rhode.   

We come last to stage management. I asked a friend who’s held every backstage position imaginable, “So, what does a Stage Manager actually do, anyway?”  They replied, “Everything.” And indeed, Everything was done by Co-Stage Managers Ashley O'Neill and Maria Reyes, and Production Stage Manager Raine DeDominici.

OK: the stage is set, props arranged, scripts perused; audience members file expectantly in to take the available seats (16? 18?).  What now?

The cast of GARY is small – only three actors, and I’ve already named all three: William Delforge as Gary; Hannah Rhode as Janice; Cameron Austin Brown as the midwife Carol. (a wad of fabric was cast as ‘baby’.)

CAMERON AUSTIN BROWN, I remember fondly as midwife Carol from TITUS. He occupied the role and made us believe: once this accoucheuse [another great word yeah? 3 cheers for word hippo!] laid eyes on the baby, they knew that this dusky little morsel was fated for elimination; one could not, after all, retain this irrefutable evidence of the Empress’ infidelity … and adulterous miscegenation to boot! What on Earth would the neighbors say?

But Carol, irrefutable witness that the dark infant proceeded from the Empress’ loins, is fond of this morsel of iniquity. Luckily (for Carol!) the babe is also cherished by Aaron, the Moor whose protracted liaison with the Empress has now borne this damning fruit.

HANNAH RHODE is Janice – by my reckoning the only one of this group who’s got the good sense God gave a little green worm. Gary finds her a bit boring, because Janice is focused on that which is practicable, functional, sensible … just reading that list of words would send Gary into a snooze. Rhodes is wonderful in this role, keeping a straight face in the most comical circumstances, even while giving Gary a perfect “WTF??” look. Yet despite being commonsensible, levelheaded and prudent (all opprobrious qualities to Gary!), Rhode gives her an essential likability. All three of the characters are actually quite appealing, despite their more vulgar and indecorous traits.

Ah, Gary … GaryGaryGary. William Delforge is well and truly brilliant in this role. I just hope he’s taking his vitamins to keep him going as he capers and cavorts, prances and gambols, downplaying Gary’s knavery with exuberant tomfoolery.  And one is forced to admire Gary’s ambitions: he will be a Fool! In fact, Delforge shows us that Gary already is a Fool, in all its positive and negative permutations. I truly loved Delforge’s characterization of Gary.

I usually unabashedly single out a member of the cast as my ‘favorite’, but GARY has me discombobulated [one of my favorite words for decades!] – I truly can’t choose between the three! Hannah Rhode’s Janice was perfection. Cameron Austin Brown’s Carol was sublime (and oh my, Brown is simply adorable!). And I just finished waxing eloquent about Delforge’s Gary.

*sigh* no way to pick

But here's the really good news: GARY: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus will be playing at Redtwist Theatre for another month! Really, truly, GARY will play through June 1 at Redtwist, 1044 W Bryn Mawr. And I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND you check it out!

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!

Do not bring the kids to TITUS ANDRONICUS; it has 14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3, depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity and 1 of cannibalism – an average of 5.2 atrocities per act. We’re talking kung-fu, sword-fu, spear-fu, dagger-fu, arrow-fu, pie-fu … heads roll, hands roll, tongues roll, nine and a half quarts of blood flow – pretty gruesome, even for Shakespeare. We were offered seats within or outside the ‘splash zone’; we chose the former (of course) and were duly splashed.

TITUS ANDRONICUS, Shakespeare's bloodiest script, brings prejudice and the politics of revenge to the forefront – timely and apt, yeah? TITUS ANDRONICUS is one of the Bard’s lesser-known plays; co-adaptors Dusty Brown, Caroline Kidwell and Jordan Gleaves showed courage and foresight in bringing this controversial story to the stage and are rewarded by the aptness of this story to 2025 America. Prejudice and revenge? Yeah.

Redtwist Theatre is one of Chicago’s signature black box venues; its mission is to ‘create searing hot drama that builds empathy, dissects cruelty, and reveals broader truths.’ Their tiny black box venue becomes a thematic asset (TITUS ANDRONICUS seated 20), every show tailored to close the gap between actor and audience – literally and figuratively – adding ‘a little red twist’ to every production by exploring the violence inherent in our humanity.

Fine aspirations but challenging to realize. Redtwist was recently renovated, though We aim to create brave spaces, where listening and learning can take place.

The cast was phenomenal, as is to be expected in Chicago’s rich thespian environs.  Anne Sheridan Smith in the title role maintained their martial dynamism through a score of brutal spectacles, as did Sabine Wan as their sister Marcus. Caroline Kidwell personified the heroism of their mutilated daughter Lavinia while Philip C. Matthews was a compelling Lucius, sole surviving progeny of the Andronicus line.

On the other side of the conflict, Laura Sturm was redoubtable as Titus Andronicus’ captive Tamora, Queen of the Goths; the Emperor Saturninus (Joshua Servantez) is sufficiently impressed to marry and make her Empress, abjuring his engagement to Titus’ daughter Lavinia. This delights his brother Bassianus (Madelyn Loehr), who is in love with and betrothed to Lavinia.

Are you still following this? Iambic pentameter is challenging enough without so convoluted a plotline. The talents of Text Coach Meredith Ernst Maryfield were absolutely vital!

Meanwhile, back at the Emperor’s palace, Empress Tamora gives birth to a baby whose dark skin proves he was fathered, not by the Emperor but by the lowborn (not to mention Black) Aaron (James Lewis). Aaron is devoted to the infant, in stark contrast to his unrelenting inclination for inciting evil. He helps Tamora’s sons Chiron (Elijah Newman) and Demetrius (Quinn Leary) foil their brother Bassianus by capturing Lavinia, gang-raping her, and cutting away her tongue and hands to prevent her identifying them.

Tamora arrays herself as Vengeance and appears to Titus Andronicus with her sons, disguised as Murder and Rapine. Undeceived (and understandably, vexed by their pillage of Lavinia), Titus sends ‘Vengeance’ away, retaining ‘Murder’ and ‘Rapine’, both of whom he kills. He invites Tamora and Saturninus to a banquet and, after they’ve scarfed down every bite, reveals that the pie he served was made with the hearts of Demetrius and Chiron.

Once Tamora has eaten her fill of scion pie, he kills both her and (for some reason) his own daughter Lavinia. A rash of killings ensues, leaving alive only Marcus, Lucius, Young Lucius, and Aaron. Lucius has Aaron buried alive and Tamora's corpse thrown to the beasts and having thus demonstrated his fitness for office, he becomes the new Emperor, promising to Make Rome Great Again. The people of Rome refuse to accept it and march en-mass on the nation’s Capital … oops, sorry; that’s 2025; Lucius Andronicus took the throne in … well, TITUS ANDRONICUS is fictional so we can’t be sure, but we can be sure that history repeats itself.

Redtwist’s creative team makes all of this work, from Director Dusty Brown with Assistant Andie Dae to Stage Managers Eliot Colin, Raine DeDominici, and Ashley O’Neill.  I was deeply impressed with Scenic Designer Eric Luchen’s set: austere, even spartan, it accommodated the script’s complex depredations and treated most spectators to contact with a corpse if not baptism in blood. I loved Costume Designer kClare McKellaston’s fusion of modern and bling. Michael Dias’ gruesomely convincing stage combat was perfectly balanced by Intimacy Director Erin Sheets; powerful even at very close contact.

If you’d like to follow (another) depraved empire crumble from within, TITUS ANDRONICUS is for you. But let me repeat:  do not bring the kids!

TITUS ANDRONICUS plays at Redtwist Theatre through March 30.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!  By Sarz Maxwell

*Extended through April 6th

*You can also find this review featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/.