Rating: 
Summary: A useful and handsome edition of an under-rated classic.
Review: TITUS ANDRONICUS. Edited by Eugene M. Waith. 226 pp. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1984 and Reprinted.Hearsay wreaks an incalculable amount of harm in the world, and all of us are, to a greater or lesser extent, its victims. We entertain the most inaccurate opinions about many things of which we have no real knowledge or experience - entire races and nations, individuals, happenings, places, books, etc., - often without either knowing or caring where these opinions came from. And it can be a shock to discover just how wrong we are. Like almost everyone else, somewhere along the line I picked up the notion that Shakespeare's early tragedy, 'Titus Andronicus,' was a very inferior work and was hardly worth reading. What a jolt I got when, quite by accident, I had a chance to watch the video of TITUS, the recent brilliant adaptation of 'Titus Andronicus' by Julie Taymor in which an even more brilliant Anthony Hopkins plays the leading role. I don't know how many minutes of viewing it took to reduce my previous 'opinion' to tatters, and it certainly had something to do with the superb acting, the original costumes, the well-designed settings, and Elliot Goldenthal's impressive musical score. And Eugene Waith, in his interesting Introduction to the present edition, does make the point that this is a play which really has to be seen to be fully appreciated. But apart from enjoying the play as dramatic spectacle, I also found myself greatly enjoying the poetry. No-one would pretend that it reaches the heights of 'Hamlet' or 'King Lear,' but it's very far from the contemptible stuff it's generally reckoned to be. Who, for example, could forget Hopkins' pacing and shading of Shakespeare's marvelous lines - those, for example, in the kitchen scene - his finding of precisely the right rhythms and emphases and intonations preparatory to his calm gutting of the degenerate and worthless offspring of Tamura : "Come, come, Lavinia ; look, thy foes are bound. . . . O villains, Chiron and Demetrius, / Here stands the spring whom you have stained with mud, / This goodly summer with your winter mixed. . . " (5.2.166-71). After this, I just had to read the play, and was lucky to find a bargain copy of the Waith. The series in which Waith's edition appears, 'The Oxford Shakespeare,' seems to have been designed as a rival or competitor to the well-known Arden series. Both are scholarly editions, although the Oxford seems lighter in its demands on the reader, its spelling has been modernized, and its footnotes are far more concise and much easier to take in. With regard to the latter, The 'Times Literary Supplement' remarked of the Oxford series : "... an unacknowledged genius has solved the problem of printing footnotes so that they can be understood and read with pleasure." Waith's 69-page Introduction is quite full, and I found his discussions of 'The Play in Performance' and its 'Reception and Interpretation' especially interesting. Personally I think he makes a very good case for considering 'Titus Andronicus' a far more significant work of art than received opinion would have it. The book is rounded out with five Appendices and an Index, enriched with ten interesting Illustrations including the famous 'Peacham Drawing,' which is given its own 7-page discussion in the Introduction, is beautifully printed on excellent paper, and is also stitched. As editions of Shakespeare go, the Waith seems to me to strike a nice balance between the needs of the scholar and those of the general reader, and it would make a handsome addition to the bookshelves of either. But whether you get Waith's 'Titus Andronicus' or some other, you ought certainly to read this play, though not perhaps until after having listened to a recording of a good production or seen Anthony Hopkin's marvelous TITUS. I think if you do you may find yourself changing your opinion of 'Titus Andronicus' too.
Rating:
Summary: One of Shakespeare's Best Tragedies...
Review: Titus has been maligned by many who have read the better known works of Shakespeare as a violent and gruesome play. That it is, but it is precisely that and other elements that make it remarkable. To truly appreciate Titus one must have read some Roman plays (specifically Seneca's early tragedies) and be relatively well versed in Greek mythology and Roman history. In Titus, Shakespeare gives the audience a great deal of Greek mythology via Ovid's Metamorphoses (compare Lavinia with Philomela and the final "feast" with the infamous dinner that Thyestes had with his brother Atreus). But the play is not only a classic in this sense. It addresses the timeless theme of revenge and the endless cycle of violence begetting violence that ensues as the charachers seek "wreakful vengance" for each horrific deed and pain that one causes the other. There are no heroes in Titus and no "good guys" just raw emotion and passion laid bare. It is at once the worst of humanity recounted with some of the most beautiful poetry that has ever been written.
Rating:
Summary: Titus presented by a dream cast
Review: To the helpful and thoughtful reviews by Julie and Frank Behrens I would only like to add that one of the great virtues of this presentation of Titus is an excellent performance by Charles Gray as Saturninus. Gray has one of the finest voices in his profession. He is best known to most people as one of the top Bond villains (Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever) and the on screen narrator of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (It's just a jump to the left).
| 
