reviewvancouver: Bard on the Beach: Titus Andronicus

Bard's populist approach to Shakespeare -- get 'em laughing, lay on the trowel, and "All the world's a great har har" -- fills seats summer after summer. It obviously can't be applied to a play so relentlessly violent and dark as Shakespeare's little loved Titus Andronicus, a revenge tale of gore, suffering, and depravity.

This mounting turns elsewhere then: to fine ensemble work, a marvellous sense of pacing, and to a balletic conception of the stage that pits Romans vs. Goths and family against family.

Kim Collier's unflinchingly intelligent take is massively indebted to Julie Taymor's superb 1999 film starting the great Anthony Hopkins in the title-role, but it works, and just how original Shakespeare was remains, of course, a critical question for students throughout the centuries. Steal where you can is the watchword.

And little does it ultimately matter, since this is a fine evening of theatre, indeed, one of the most satisfying I've witnessed by this company. The key lies in good measure to a deep respect for the text, granted far from Shakespeare's most compelling on the level of language, but there's the rub: the actors are somehow freer, it seems, and less encumbered by an idiom so remote from today's.

And do they act. Russell Roberts' Titus is nothing less than magisterial, a finely paced portrayal that tugs at the heartstrings. He is ably partnered by Jennifer Lines, as Tamora the Goth Queen, whose snarl, bite, and conniving quality qualify her for Queen Bitch par excellance. The suffering Lavinia, her contrast, is winningly and affectingly played by Julie McIsaac.

Simon Bradbury tends to roar a bit too regularly, but as the Emperor Saturninus he adopts the required poses of pure evil unwittingly in league with revenge. Omari Newton's Aaron the Moor is a bit flat in his delivery until the play's mid-point where he suddenly takes off onto a different level, warming mightily to his material. The same is true of the usually rivetting Bob Frazer, surprisingly wooden in the opening sections but also finding his way to a deft and committed performance.

As Chiron and Demetrius, Charles Christien Gallant and Kyle Rideout are two eye-candy hotties who strut their stuff with confidence, again a note wholly taken over from Taymor's film but an effective contemporary injection into the play. The other -- and truly original one here -- is turning the text's Bassiano into Bassiana, Lavinia's lesbian lover, played butchly by Colleen Wheeler.

This works not particularly well and seems simply a throwaway gimmick, as lines change, and some of the rhythms are off. Finally, one wonders what's the point is, aside from directorial self-indulgence.

Christine Reimer's costumes are glorious, as usual, and the two boy-wonders decked out in Scottish kilt and Tamora in evening gown are the evening's visual highlights. Happily, the musical background is unobtrusive and to the point -- not always something Bard gets right, and just another indication that you don't need a trowel to say something.

This production deserves a full-house run. Rarely mounted, Titus shines brightly in this well conceived, finely acted production. Chalk one up for the Bard on the Beach here: this is really good.