Customer Reviews

Titus Andronicus (Arkangel Complete Shakespeare)

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I was sure that when Harper Audio reissued on cassettes the old recording of <Titus Andronicus> it could not be beat! Well, just in perfect timing with the new motion picture version of the play, we now have from Penguin's Arkangel Complete Shakespeare series, a very serious rival to the older set.

The Harper set is perfectly fine with stylized readings in old fashioned manner (what else can one do with a script like this one?) that milks what little poetry there is in this play for all it is worth. The "star" of the show is Anthony Quayle, whose Aaron the Moor just stops at going "over the top" in his last scenes.

The Arkangel set gives us Paterson Joseph in that role, whose "ethnic" voice never overstates any of the lines and who whispers where Quayle chortles in his joy. David Troughton plays the title role, trying (it seems to me) to make the character believable in a voice that seems just a tad young after hearing the venerable Michael Hodern in the earlier recording. In doing so, he loses some of the feeling for the meter but I think he succeeds very well on his own terms.

For once, the rape scene is as harrowing on a sound recording as it ever was on stage, thanks to the Director eliciting the most horrible screams from poor Lavinia (Emma Gregory), whose voice is then written out of the script. The evil Queen of the Goths (Harriet Walter) sounds like the mother of those two monster sons (John McAndrew and Charles Simpson); while the rest of the cast is never less than good.

The only (to me) jarring feature is the use of an organ, which (1) is too anachronistic and (2) makes us think unfortunately of the silent movie melodramas that this play can so closely resemble. I will keep playing both sets in the future, but this one has a bit more excitement while the other has a bit more of the poetry. Both are quite valid and this play does deserve something of a respectful resurrection that the film might bring about and these two sets will help considerably.

Titus has been maligned by many who have read the better known works of Shakespeare as a violent and gruesome play. That it is, but it is precisely that and other elements that make it remarkable. To truly appreciate Titus one must have read some Roman plays (specifically Seneca's early tragedies) and be relatively well versed in Greek mythology and Roman history. In Titus, Shakespeare gives the audience a great deal of Greek mythology via Ovid's Metamorphoses (compare Lavinia with Philomela and the final "feast" with the infamous dinner that Thyestes had with his brother Atreus). But the play is not only a classic in this sense. It addresses the timeless theme of revenge and the endless cycle of violence begetting violence that ensues as the charachers seek "wreakful vengance" for each horrific deed and pain that one causes the other. There are no heroes in Titus and no "good guys" just raw emotion and passion laid bare. It is at once the worst of humanity recounted with some of the most beautiful poetry that has ever been written.