British violent summer Shakespeare "trembles with inescapable timeliness"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Critic's Notebook
Shakespeare in War, More Timely Than Ever
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: July 8, 2006


(Ellie Kurttz)
Hitomi Manaka in Ninagawa Company's "Titus Andronicus" in Stratford-upon-Avon.

LONDON — Die they do, violently and often eagerly. But old soldiers never just fade away in the world of William Shakespeare. They fall from the skies of their martial glory with the dazzle of Roman candles — blazing, sputtering, ripping the air with noise. These are the flashiest roles in the canon for actors between the ages of Hamlet and Lear. And led by Patrick Stewart, as a Mark Antony surprised by age in the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Antony and Cleopatra" in Stratford-upon-Avon, their fiery death throes are casting fierce light and mortal shadows over this year's summer of Shakespeare in England.

In addition to Mr. Stewart's expert study in waning virility, set off by Harriet Walter's devilishly crafty Cleopatra, the season offers two very different versions of Shakespeare's grisliest portrait of a war-making lion in winter, "Titus Andronicus": a stark, glacial tone poem of a production from the Ninagawa Company of Tokyo, which visited Stratford for 10 performances last month; and, at Shakespeare's Globe in London, a fast and furious interpretation that goes straight for the guts (in more ways than one).

The vivisections aren't only physical. Besides demonstrating that there's more than one way to skin a corpse, these contrasting takes on "Titus" anatomize the impact of a world where slaughter and torture are everyday occurrences, and especially on those whose job is to kill. With Douglas Hodge (at the Globe) and Kotaro Yoshida (for the Ninagawa Company) offering rich and intriguingly complementary portrayals of the revenge-addled title character, both productions chillingly summon the special, painful twilight reserved for men who have lived by the sword.

The current investigations into the alleged rape and murder of civilians by American soldiers in Iraq have made such presentations tremble with inescapable timeliness. It seems fitting that Dominic Dromgoole, the new artistic director of the Globe (where he has bravely succeeded the popular Mark Rylance), should have begun his inaugural season with Lucy Bailey's Grand Guignol staging of "Titus" and his own adrenaline-stoked production of another Roman war play by Shakespeare, "Coriolanus," whose arrogant hero (played as if he were a spoiled soccer star by the strapping Jonathan Cake) was schooled by his mother on tales of bloody and heroic combat....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/theater/08bran.html?hp&ex=1152331200&en=9d888e05b5d4decc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[necso]

1. "'Titus Andronicus'... the Ninagawa Company of Tokyo";

I'd like to see video. Certain of Shakespeare's plays seem like natural material for (some) Japanese production companies (Kurosawa blended in his own way, but there are other ways). (Shakespeare's plays can be read, but a good production and performance is the better way to experience them.)

... ... ... ... ...

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Sounds fascinating, indeed. And the NYT photo knocks me out. nt

[MasonJar]

3. A great story I must share with you about Titus. In the early 60's

a friend of mine (who probably had not read Titus that carefully) said in answer to a test question in Shakespeare 400, regarding Titus that " when they cut out her tongue she found it very distasteful." She got an A on the test. Picture that wonderful (my dear Dr Evans) professor reading through the stack of dreary exams and finding that delicious tidbit.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. And sharing it at the faculty lounge! nt

[depakid]

5. Patrick Stewart in Antony & Cleopatra!

Nice...

Wish I could get over to Britain this summer.