RSC Friends

Photograph by Helen Maybanks.

I had not seen this play before and I approached the theatre with some trepidation aware of its grisly depictions of murder, and mayhem that was once so popular with a Tudor audience. Having said that, I tell myself,  modern audiences seem to share this insatiable appetite for horror  given the popularity of ‘Scandi noir ‘and its imitators.

What impressed me about Blanche McIntyre’s production is how well the play works in a modern day setting. The sudden changing allegiances and betrayals where honour and integrity are abandoned and lies and deceit hold sway seem terrifyingly familiar to our world. The Goths enter Rome as prisoners of war and then suddenly their queen is chosen to be  the Roman emperor’s wife, the world is topsy turvey and frightening, the old certainties have gone as the empire crumbles.

The acting is superb, the sets and music excellent and the audience find themselves laughing at times ( admittedly a little uneasily!) I try not to single out individual performances in these blogs but  I must mention David Troughton’s masterful  playing of Titus Andronicus. The descent of the character from blind loyalty to the state to madness as he sees his family betrayed and destroyed prefigured  King Lear. David Troughton captures Titus’s rage and bewilderment perfectly.

This play is a worthy inclusion in the RSC’s Roman season. Well worth seeing.