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TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-The-Show Guide The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2018 TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-the-Show Guide Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare Know-the-Show Audience Guide researched and written by the Education Department of Artwork by Scott McKowen The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2018 TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-the-Show Guide In this Guide – The Life of William Shakespeare ............................................................................................... 2 – Titus Andronicus: Director’s Note .............................................................................................. 3 – Titus Andronicus: A Synopsis .................................................................................................... 5 – Who’s Who in the Play ............................................................................................................. 7 – Sources and History .................................................................................................................. 8 – The Peacham Drawing .............................................................................................................. 9 – Titus Andronicus: A Play for Our Time? ................................................................................... 10 – Commentary & Criticism ........................................................................................................ 11 – Theatre in Shakespeare’s Day .................................................................................................. 12 – In this Production ................................................................................................................... 13 – Explore Online ....................................................................................................................... 14 – Sources & Further Reading ...................................................................................................... 15 1 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2018 TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-the-Show Guide The Life playwright. He wrote approximately 38 plays, two epic poems, William and over 150 sonnets. His work was immensely popular, appealing to members of all social spheres including Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare King James I. While the plays were well-liked, Shakespeare’s of work was not considered by his educated contemporaries to be exceptional. By 1608, Shakespeare’s involvement with theatre William Shakespeare, widely began to dwindle, and he spent more time at his country home in recognized as the greatest English Stratford. He died in 1616. dramatist, was born on April 23, 1564. He was the third of eight Most of Shakespeare’s plays found children born to John Shakespeare their first major publication and Mary Arden of Stratford- in 1623, seven years after upon-Avon in Warwickshire, Shakespeare’s death, when England. Shakespeare’s father was two of his fellow actors put a prominent local merchant, and the plays together in the First Shakespeare’s childhood, though Folio. Other early printings National Portrait Gallery, London little is known about it for certain, of Shakespeare’s plays were appears to have been quite normal. called quartos, a printer’s In fact, it seems that the young term referring to the format in Shakespeare was allowed considerable leisure time because his which the publication was laid writing contains extensive knowledge of hunting and hawking. out. These quartos and the First In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a farmer. Folio texts are the sources of all She was eight years his senior, and the match was considered modern printings of Shakespeare’s unconventional. plays. The Shakespeare Family It is believed that Shakespeare left Stratford-upon-Avon and went Coat of Arms to London around 1588. By 1592, he was a successful actor and 2 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2018 TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-the-Show Guide accessible glimpse into the potential of a young playwright just beginning Titus to find his voice. The seduction of revenge is clearly Andronicus central to the plot, but so are the Director’s Note consequences of revenge and, Titus Andronicus is a play that has been on my “wish list” since my surprisingly, the importance of college years - when Bruce Cromer, who plays the titular role in this family. Every atrocity that takes place production, was my Shakespeare professor. The play rightfully has in the vicious world of this play is a reputation for being Shakespeare’s bloodiest work, and that was committed either to protect family or certainly a major draw for me nearly three decades ago as a younger to exact revenge for a wrong done to artist – something wild and intense for audiences and artists alike. Since family. As a father now, I am struck then, I have become far more intrigued with the unexpected depths that by the sometimes twisted sense of John Boydell’s etching of the attack on Lavinia as Tamora watches. the play possesses. Looking past the “shock and awe” moments of Titus, family that is set firmly at the heart one sees stark human stories filled with love and betrayal, desire and of this play. Titus forces us to take a longing, cruelty and compassion. I also hope that audiences and readers long, hard look at how far we would go for family in terms of revenge. will discover the beautiful poetry and imagery that ripple throughout the It then requires that we consider the consequences. What would you play. do if something unspeakable happened to your child or to your parent? How would you respond if all legal outlets were denied to you? What Written to appease the Elizabethan audience’s desire for revenge- if the community to whom you had been devoted suddenly turned its dramas, Titus was a kind of “pop-tragedy” for the up-and-coming back on you in your time of need? What might you do if, by chance, you Shakespeare. It was so popular that it was printed in quarto form were given power over those who had wronged you? It is a frightening within its first year. The dynamic characters and diabolic blood-letting rabbit hole to go down because I expect, if honestly examined, many that enthralled the Elizabethans, often grab the spotlight, but now law-abiding individuals would find themselves committing previously with the advantage of perspective, one can also see the seeds of what unthinkable acts in the name of family. This is why I believe Titus is an Shakespeare would later nurture into his masterpieces. The drive of important play in the Shakespearean canon. Few artists examine the revenge becomes more considered and weighty in Hamlet; a parent’s human soul (especially the dark recesses we often attempt to deny) as anguish at the sight of their injured child is refined later in King Lear artfully as Shakespeare, and in doing so, he requires us to examine and the Henry VI plays; a mother’s desperate plea for her son’s life is ourselves. This is an arena in which Shakespeare soars. His revisited in Henry VI, Part Three; and the charismatic, ruthless villains writing captures shockingly honest glimpses into our humanity and inhumanity. Titus examines the darkest extremes find greater nuance in Othello and Richard III. This is an exciting and 3 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2018 TITUS ANDRONICUS: Know-the-Show Guide “WHEN?” IN ROME of our desires, our hubris, our I workshopped an abridged version of the play with members of our Unlike Shakespeare’s other pettiness, our ambitions, our loves, Summer Professional Training Program. That workshop, which involved Roman plays, the story of Titus our cruelty, and our frailty; and over three dozen college-level actors, designers, technicians, directors, has no basis in historical fact in so doing so, I believe it allows and stage managers, reignited my curiosity and excitement about the play. or lore. In fact, the Rome that us, or encourages us, to consider It seems only right that this production is also infused with the enthusiasm he depicts never existed. There better paths to follow. and tenacity of the next generation of theatre artists. Supplementing are senators and tribunes, but our professional company (which includes two actors from that 2015 also emperors and familial When leaders make impulsive workshop), there will be over a dozen members of our Summer inheritance of power. As decisions based on petty conflicts Professional Training Program on stage and in the wings. the Shakespeare editor T.J.B. or personal ego, as we see in the Spencer explains, the play early moments of this play, the Brian B. Crowe, Director is “a summary of Roman entire foundation of a society can politics. It is not so much that be undermined. Many characters any particular set of political in Titus commit atrocities under institutions is assumed in Titus, TITUS BY THE NUMBERS the guise of societal traditions or but rather that it includes all the sacred ceremony. Public opinion political institutions that Rome “Titus Andronicus has is manipulated and swayed in a ever had.” 14 killings, 9 of them on stage, matter of a few lines based on the 6 severed members, whims of key figures in authority. 1 rape... We need only to look today’s daily live burial, news to see people celebrating the brutality and bloodshed perpetrated 1 on “the other” in their communities. We see the horrors of detention 1 case of insanity, and centers across the globe, calculated attacks on a nation’s own people, 1 of (case of) cannibalism families being ripped apart in strange lands, or Draconian actions taken — an average of 5.2 atrocities per Act, by leaders who
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