TITUS ANDRONICUS (Feb 18 – Mar 18)

by William Shakespeare

directed by Jeff Church

After their SOLD OUT run of 'Happy Birthday, Wanda June', Burbage Theatre Company presents the Rhode Island Theatrical Premiere of  ‘Titus Andronicus’ the first tragedy written by William Shakespeare, directed by Jeff Church, which opens previews February 18 as the second and final play in the Burbage Theatre Company's winter series, This Winter’s War. 

 
Titus Androcnius runs February 18 – March 18  at Aurora Providence, 276 Westminster Street, Providence RI. Tickets are $10-$20. Visit www.burbagetheatre.org or contactboxoffice@burbagetheatre.org  for reservations and more info.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Titus Andronicus returns to Rome after years at war and is expected to become emperor.She refuses the throne, but in doing so sets into motion a gruesome chain of events. Tamora, queen of his defeated enemies, marries the new emperor. She and her sons vow revenge against Titus and carry out a campaign of gore and cruelty which decimates the Andronicus family. Devastated and dishonored, Titus enacts her own sinister vengeance against the royal family in what is perhaps Shakespeare’s most violent play. 
 
“Be warned," says Artistic Director Jeff Church, "Titus Andronicus not a play for the faint of heart. Steeped in the Senecan tradition that permeated the Elizabethan stage, Titus famously depicts the violence that revenge begets. But this play is so much deeper than it’s body count. Titus is about the commonplace cruelty, pain, and prejudice that we exhibit and experience when living in a perpetual state of war. It is about the blurred line between justice and revenge, and the kind of manic mirth that stems from the latter. It is about the effects of violence on the mind and our human capacity to endure the inexplicable; atrocities against the state, against family, against women, against those of different cultures and different beliefs. It is also about humor’s ability to diffuse even the most dire of circumstances.
"These are not outdated themes. Quite the contrary. In a time where nine out of ten Americans believe that War will never end, in a time where we have been desensitized to the barbarism in our modern world, we at Burbage want to put you in the room with it. Our challenge to you: We want you to see the effects of the violence you benignly hear about through your television screens, and experience a world that you might otherwise casually dismiss."

‘This is not just a splatter fest. Its savagery is always disturbing, and the wild laughter it evokes sticks in the throat as the world turns mad.’
 – The Guardian
 
“This is not a play for the faint-hearted. For centuries this early tragedy by Shakespeare was never performed at all, so graphic is its violence, so gleeful its cruelty… You leave the theatre feeling both harrowed to the marrow and disconcertingly elated.”
 – Telegraph UK

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
 

CAST