Among William Shakespeare’s earliest plays, Titus Andronicus seldom comes this way. The drama’s graphic violence and lack of any positive message tend to discourage productions, especially during our presently sensitive times. Still, Shakespeare devotees will want to encounter this relative stranger because it is unlike anything else in the playwright’s catalog and yet possesses elements that will be developed among his subsequent works.
What’s more, the spirited Red Bull Theater revival that opened on Sunday at the Pershing Square Signature Center stars a forceful Patrick Page, whose wily acting, growling baritone vocals and formidable presence lend grandeur and menace to the title character.
The first of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Titus Andronicus proves to be closer to a sensational slasher epic than a lofty, elevated drama. Set in classical Rome, the story kicks off with a human sacrifice and concludes with a massacre at the dinner table. Events in between include a rape, mutilations involving the collective loss of three hands and a tongue, cannibalism and nearly a dozen murders or executions.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
For centuries since its original popularity with audiences, scholars described these blood-soaked matters as “revolting,” and it’s generally thought another author, perhaps George Peele or even Thomas Kyd, contributed in some part to the work. Said to have been a big hit back in its day like The Spanish Tragedy and similar Elizabethan thrillers, Titus Andronicus should be considered the 1590s equivalent of Game of Thrones since it’s all about power and revenge — without the dragons, of course.
Long story short, Titus is a beloved Roman general of rigid moral virtue, who runs afoul of Tamora, the captive Queen of the Goths, whose eldest son he sacrifices. The vengeful Tamora soon bewitches Saturninus, the neurotic Roman Emperor, into marriage and then sets upon destroying Titus, his sons and his daughter Lavinia. Tamora and her nasty kids, Chiron and Demetrius, are coached in their evil deeds by Aaron, a ruthless Moor who also is Tamora’s lover. Eventually Titus wises up and all hell busts loose.
This plotline of villains and deceptions twists with surprises, so small wonder the tone of this modest Red Bull revival often shifts with it, from the formality of a military ceremony all the way over into grim, farcical business involving severed body parts and a monstrous pie. Treating such lurid doings mostly for dark comedy, Jesse Berger, the director, keeps the two-act show’s pacing quick and the emotional temperature reasonably cool with one single jarring exception: A violent assault upon the screaming Lavinia by Chiron and Demetrius is vigorously depicted by the three actors with a physical actuality that’s horrifying to witness.
Increasingly battered but scarcely bowed as Titus, Page’s crafty performance suggests his character’s presumably growing madness is purposefully faked. Francesca Faridany gives Tamora an elegant presence and a wheedling voice whenever she toys with Matthew Amendt’s highly-strung Saturninus. The not entirely evil Aaron – quite a fascinating forerunner of both Iago and Othello — gleams with malice in a fierce performance from McKinley Belcher III. Jesse Aaronson and Adam Langdon respectively depict Chiron and Demetrius as sniggering bros whose juvenile behavior contrasts with the maturity shown by Olivia Reis’ ultimately valiant Lavinia and a sharp, stern Anthony Michael Lopez as her elder sibling. In the one significant alteration to the text (it does not impact the drama), Titus’ loyal brother Marcus, a Roman tribune, has been re-gendered into his loyal sister Marcia, cheerfully played by Enid Graham.
Adam Wernick, the composer and sound designer, contributes a disquieting score of metallic sounds and dissonances in varying moods and volumes. Emily Rebholz, the costume designer, dresses everyone in modern-ish attire; mostly in black with touches of red. Beowulf Boritt, the scenic designer, sets out a neat, flexible environment of neutral-colored pillars to suggest forums, palaces and forests as aptly lighted by designer Jiyoun Chang. Staged within Signature’s 190-seat Alice Griffin Jewel Box space, somehow the play looks to be produced on a tight budget when a splash of crazy excess might better accent this extravagant melodrama.
Not to get entangled among credits, let’s note the estimable Rick Sordelet is the fight director for that no doubt intentionally ugly assault; Anya Kutner, the properties supervisor, discreetly delivers those bleeding body parts in semi-clear baggies; Ayanna Thompson, the dramaturg, crafts insightful notes for the program. An insert in the Playbill helpfully provides a family tree of sorts to identify the characters and their actors in this rare Shakespearean shocker.
Titus Andronicus opened March 29, 2026, at the Signature Center and runs through April 19. Tickets and information: redbulltheater.com
