Theater review: 'Titus Andronicus' is a study of the most cruel - and bloody well done

"Titus Andronicus" is William Shakespeare's earliest tragedy (circa 1593) and his goriest. Set in third-century Rome, it tracks the undoing of a Roman general who owns the battlefield but is tragically flawed in his comprehension of the political set-up for which he has fought.

Director Paul von Stoetzel examines that flaw with icy clarity in Cromulent Shakespeare Company's riveting revival of "Titus Andronicus," which opened last weekend at Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis. Manly honor turns delusional. Vengeance becomes addictive.

At the start, Titus (Charles Hubbell) has returned to Rome victorious over the "barbarous Goths." Having taken their queen, Tamora (Jean Salo), prisoner, he enacts ritual sacrifice for the recent death of his 21st son in battle by executing her eldest son.

Then, dismissing the request of the citizenry that he become the next emperor, Titus instead endorses the perverse Saturninus (Andrew Chambers), eldest son of the previous emperor. The move shows Titus' unquestioning attitude toward patrician tradition.

This triggers events that swiftly result in Titus killing one of his own sons and Tamora wedding Saturninus after Titus' daughter, Lavinia (Jennifer Bahe), declines to do so.

In one notorious sequence, Tamora encourages her surviving sons to rape and mutilate Lavinia. Ensemble actors draped in mesh-like cloth, ghoulishly signifying forest trees, deliberately block her escape. It's as if nature itself has unnaturally conspired with man to maim and torture.

Though the chopping off of Lavinia's hands and cutting out of her tongue occur off stage, be warned: The vengeful gorefest continues all the way through.

Hubbell navigates this exquisitely, balancing Titus' brute authoritarianism with the poignant naivete of a man unable to adequately interpret and adapt to circumstances. Salo relishes Tamora's sadism to chilling effect. Yet we understand how cruelties foisted on her have generated that compulsion.

John Townsend is a Minneapolis writer.