Summary 
Sometimes effective tragedy, with an understudy as the haunted Titus, borders at times on parody, faltering after Act I. At its best a gripping drama with excellent portrayals of Aaron and Tamora, too often the production reaches for laughs or over-the-top histrionics that blunt the overall effect.
Design
Directed by Darko Tresnjak. Scenic design by Darko Tresnjak. Costume design by Linda Cho. Lighting design by Itai Erdai. Sound design by Lindsay Jones. Fights directed by Simon Fon.
Cast
Sean Arbuckle (Saturninus), Skye Brandon (Bassianus), David Ferry (Marcus), Wayne Best (Titus), Paul Fauteux (Lucius), Amanda Lisman (Lavinia), Claire Lautier (Tamora), Brendan Murray (Chiron), Bruce Godfree (Demetrius), Dion Johnstone (Aaron).
Analysis
Darko Tresnjak's production of Titus Andronicus plays in the black-box Tom Patterson Theatre at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, a period-piece tragedy with traditional togas and a white marble stage. The set, also designed by Tresnjak, is a thrusting rectangle with a marble table and two lit candles downstage opposite four statues of anguished gods. The statues rest upon mesh metal platforms interlaced with flowers. More than a dozen toy soldier-like war figurines - perhaps representing the battlefield dead among the Andronicus family - line the downstage table, and in a spot-lit prologue, Lavinia sadly adds two more figurines.
Tresnjak begins with a preening Saturninus standing atop a platform in a 1.1 political debate with Bassianus, who claims the throne in a red-striped toga and sandals. The two grapple center stage and must be separated as Titus and his warriors return upstage to cheers. Wayne Best understudies the demanding title role in this, the final performance of the run, for John Vickery. Best performs well, especially in the opening scenes, revealing the clipped diction, haunted eyes and stocky build of a lifelong soldier. Best's Titus enters in a slow march, led onstage by young Lucius, who holds a golden eagle aloft on a long staff. Titus, wearing battle armor over his toga, is followed by the wrapped corpses of two of his battlefield-fallen sons upon a wheeled platform. To a shout of "hail, Rome!" he drops to his knees and removes his helmet and cape. When the shrouded bodies are carried aloft, Best's Titus lifts a drape to reveal the platform as a barred cage that holds captive the Goth queen Tamora and her three sons. Claire Lautier's Tamora is wild-haired and wild-eyed, almost feral but strikingly attractive, pleading in vain for the life of her hooded eldest son. With Titus kneeling downstage, in prayer but unyielding - "no noise!" - a guard spins the cage then leaps atop it to jam a spear down and into Tamora's son as she screams, beginning the bloody cycle of revenge.
Tresnjak continues the effective Act I of Shakespeare's text with Lavinia on her knees beside Titus, then Saturninus' whining objection to Titus being offered the crown. Best's Titus exhibits a resolve of steel as Saturninus is proclaimed emperor to crowd chants, remaining noble even while Lavinia is selected as queen and his sons take her by the arm and flee: "treason!" He slits the throat of his son Martius, who sags after having blocked the path of his father. Action moves fluidly with Tamora returning upon a red carpet as the queen, in a purple gown slit to each hip, wearing heavy make-up and an elaborate head-dress. Saturninus pouts like a recalcitrant child, humming in adolescent frustration until prodded to mercy by the reptilian Tamora, who in an aside turns to the audience and cries - "massacre them all!" - before knocking down the Andronicus toy soldiers upon the table. She exits upstage with exaggerated slowness, following after her sons in their golden togas, but pausing to give a carnal leer to Aaron, who has observed from a crouch upstage.
Dion Johnstone as Aaron, along with Lautier as Tamora, anchor the production with their exceptional portrayals of Titus's antagonists. Johnstone's Aaron, bearded and wearing black, is a calculating villain a la Richard III in his 2.1 soliloquies, lying on his stomach upon a platform before rising to separate the quarreling Demetrius and Chiron. Tamora's sons prove the production's weak link, less villainous than comically late-teen spoiled brats. They taunt each other behind Aaron's back and he hauls one off over his shoulder before slamming their heads together. One brother speaks in a nasal twang due to a broken nose, and they jabber childishly of the rape of Lavinia, moaning carnally, thrusting their hips, and licking their lips in a display that brings ripples of laughter rather than revulsion from the audience. They carry Aaron offstage upon their shoulders in celebration of his scheme, returning upstage 2.2 to follow the downstage hunters - Romans in brown and black, Andonici in brown and blood red - the hunt begun amid trumpets from large, oddly shaped frog-head horns.
Lautier's Tamora slinks on stage 2.3 in a low-cut scarlet dress - also slit to both hips - wearing almost demonic gold-and-black make-up, and Aaron hoists her in his arms. Lavinia and Bassianus are assaulted by the almost playful boys, who stab Bassianus and dump him into his shield as if a playmate on a round sled. They spin Bassianus around, then touch Lavinia's hands to themselves and giggle, pulling her to the ground. Lavinia grasps Tamora's ankle to plead for mercy as they flick their tongues and undulate like hormone-addled schoolboys. Moments later a platform is wheeled onstage with two Andronicus sons atop it, and amid torchlight they peer down as if from the edge of a pit at Bassianus lying in his shield. Johnstone's Aaron leaps atop the platform to shove one guard into the "pit" and frame them both, and Lavinia emerges upstage to conclude the scene, her mouth bloody black, her handless arms dangling in sleeves. The horror of the image is blunted by Demetrius and Chiron, who continue to thrust their hips and wag their tongues before rushing off in gleeful laughter. Marcus then discovers Lavinia and emotes at full throttle as if compensating for the Goth boys with over-the-top hyper-drama. He falls to the stage and thrashes before rising to tie tourniquets over Lavinia's wounds.
Histrionics continue 3.1 - a jarring departure from the stateliness of the Act I opening - with top-of-the-lungs shouting leaving little room for subtlety, much less a progression of emotion. Best's Titus endures threefold trauma - no mercy for his framed sons, the news of Lucius' banishment, then the discovery of the mutilated Lavinia - in melodramatic volume. When offered clemency by Aaron via the sacrifice of a hand, the three Andronicus men - Titus, Marcus, Lucius - circle each other in a comically high-pitched argument over whom will offer sacrifice. The mutilation is made a joke when Best's Titus appears indecisive as to which of his hands should be severed by Aaron's axe. The axe swings in a sudden blackout - save for Lavinia, still within a spotlight glare upstage, quivering within a blanket - and after a heavy thud, the lights rise and Johnstone's Aaron licks Titus' severed hand and laughs. The comical undertone continues, the tragedy now something of an uneasy parody, Best's Titus raging as he cradles Lavinia, crying out as the heads of his sons are returned to the stage spitted upon antlers atop poles held by Roman soldiers, horns protruding from gaping mouths. In a macabre conclusion to the production's head-scratching first half, a soldier's guard dog pauses to sniff and lick Titus' severed hand, and Titus giggles as Marcus bellows, tossing his brother a chopped-off head. Finally, Lavinia fetches Titus' hand between her teeth as they all exit.
The second half of Tresnjak's Titus Andronicus plays like an inversion of the first, with four scenes of varied effectiveness followed by a dramatically potent and at times theatrically thrilling conclusion. 3.2 begins with Best's Titus obviously unstable, sitting opposite Marcus to rage about the "murder" of a fly and the lack of justice in the world. Lavinia, all in ghostly white with ghoulish purple and black eye make up like a zombie in a B-grade horror movie, chases after Lucius, then drags a staff through an aquarium of red sand to spell out the names of her rapists. After screams from Lavinia and shouts from Titus, Tresnjak cuts to 4.2 and Aaron with Tamora's sons, the boys dallying with prostitute lovers, one of them a man. When the nurse brings Tamora's newborn son - a plastic doll with a dark face - the Moor disarms Chiron one-handed while cradling the baby, then shouts to admonish the boys. They pout, sitting together with a petulant thump and swinging their legs back and forth like scolded toddlers, mumbling and grumbling their responses in comical unison. When Johnstone's Aaron suddenly stabs the nurse with one of her hairpins, she squeals and sprawls, and he oddly mocks her high-pitched cries with squeals of his own, bringing ripples of laughter from the audience.
After a slowly paced 4.3, with red arrows fired as entreaties to the gods into Saturninus' court, the Emperor stomps onstage upon a 4.4 red carpet to whine in angry complaint. Next, Lucius and his ragtag band of rebel soldiers, wearing long hair and beards, force the captured Aaron to his knees - "touch not the boy!" - then place a noose around his neck and slowly raise it so Johnstone's unrepentant Moor must rise to his tiptoes to keep from hanging, his defiant insults continuing but in rasping chokes.
5.2 begins well, with Tamora and her sons in disguise as Revenge with her spirits Rape and Murder, all three wearing twisted masks and long stringy wigs like creepy witches. They are clad in flowing red and black with elongated arms and tiny red demonic baby hands protruding from the sleeves, their voices amplified. But the scene soon edges into parody with Best's Titus, a bit like Hamlet bordering insanity but pretending to be beyond, appearing spot lit deep within the audience. He drops a billboard - "Die! Die! Die" - then claps his hands and giggles. When Tamora exits, her sons are quickly captured by the now murderously sane Titus, who orders their wigs removed and their mouths stopped with rags. The boys scream and squirm, driven to their knees downstage, their backs to Lavinia, who emerges with vengeful intensity upstage. Their cries of "I'm sorry" are audible despite the gags, and Lavinia, much like a comic book avenger super hero, reveals huge mounted blades as her substitute hands, and she screams and rushes at Demetrius and Chiron in a sudden blackout, killing them amid loud screams followed by red-lit silence.
Tresnjak's 5.3 conclusion returns to effectively wrought traditional tragedy. The banquet is a brightly lit feast with Saturninus and Tamora downstage amid purple pillows and feathers. Joyful music plays as Best's Titus enters in a mask, carrying a silver platter full of tiny red meat pies like cupcakes. Saturninus feeds Tamora, then tastes a pie of his own, and they both exclaim as Titus watches, then removes his mask, kisses Lavinia, and snaps her neck. When Tamora realizes she has consumed the flesh of her sons - "there they are!" - she gags and spits as Titus stabs her in the neck, and the ensuing violence is a red-lit bloodbath in a cacophony of loud music: Saturninus stabs Titus; Lucius in turn stabs the Emperor; and as guards and servants chase around and cry out, the young Lucius finishes Saturninus by garroting him from behind. When Aaron arrives, the violence and music suddenly cease as red confetti bursts over the stage in tiny streamers, a dozen corpses onstage and in the gutters. The house lights come up as Lucius accepts the garland of the Emperor atop a stage left platform. Tresnjak's uneven production - two scenes of effective tragedy bookending a grueling stretch of borderline parody - concludes with Lucius pausing to place the garland on the head of an audience member before giving him a thumbs-up and leading a procession offstage.