1st Event of Qrtr

For my first literary event of the quarter, I attended classmate Ashley Chang's production of Titus Andronicus—renowned as Shakespeare's bloodiest.

The cool conceit of this adaptation was that there was no stage separating characters and audience. Rather, characters orbited around a dark lake Laganita while theatergoers--armed with flashlights-- were at liberty to follow whichever characters they chose.

Thus, instead of following the a linearly presented play, we followed characters, often observing them during the long stretch of time wherein they are "off stage" in Shakespeare's original script. So technically, the term "off stage" does not logically apply to this play as there is neither a stage nor a moment whence the curtain is drawn during which any of the characters aren't performing for some subset of audience members.

For me, the coolest parts of this adaptation were these interpolative, normally-off-stage periods where we got to watch the cast of villains engaged in stuff like spitting competitions, sipping 40s, smashing tv sets, and listening to "Bitches Ain't Shit" by Dr. Dre.  Audience members were even engaged by characters to participate.

Equally impressive was the synchronicity of the whole play. It was quite the demonstration of production skill (fuck yeah Ashley) getting all of these characters flitting about Lake Lag to converge in the right place at the right time.

As for the rest of the play, given the nature of following characters rather than the plot as a whole, it was difficult to follow. Having not read the plot treatment beforehand, I couldn't really tell you what the play was about, except that it deals with and frequently features murder, rape, and madness. But not understanding the whole play meant that the gratuitous violence felt all the more gratuitous. The form fit the play well. Certainly, I don't know that this stateless, immersive form could have worked for a lot of plays, but it worked for an ensemble piece with the crazy tone of Titus.

Additionally, it was all the more "immersive" to be surprised when characters were surprised. Because audience members' perspectives were focalized around characters, many moments of dramatic tension were transformed into moments of surprise. For instance, in a traditional stage play, the audience has full knowledge from the beginning of the final scene that Tamora is about to eat and does eat a meal consisting of her murdered sons' ground up remains; if you were following Tamora in this production of Titus, however, the tense moments leading to Tamora sitting down at the dinner table are replaced with the surprise of learning about this inadvertent cannibalism when Tamora does. 

I'd certainly be down to see more presentations of plays like this, and I think it could work even better if the audience were more familiar with the story before hand. Regardless of my familiarity with Titus, however, I loved it!