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Gore-free Titus Andronicus uses candles when characters snuff it

By Craig Simpson

SHAKESPEARE’S Titus Andronicus is so bloody that audience members have been known to faint at the violence, so the Globe has devised a gentler way for characters to die on stage.

Actors in its new production of the play will no longer pretend to attack each other surrounded by pools of fake blood, but instead “murder” candles.

The candles will be held by the characters in the play, which has a body count in double figures, and when they die these metaphorical lights will be snuffed out, avoiding the potential upset of person-on-person violence.

While this may spare any squeamish spectators, the candles themselves will be destroyed with more force than actors would be allowed to inflict on each other, and will be smashed to pieces with meat tenderisers.

The symbolic approach comes after the Globe’s 2014 run of Titus Andronicus, during which around 100 audience members fainted or were led out owing to the hyper-realistic gore on stage.

Jude Christian, who is directing the new all-female production set to run next year, has said that her candle concept “makes it less bad”, adding: “Watching a human pretend to stab another human can be upsetting.”

The show nevertheless comes with a trigger waiting for the “extremely upsetting” subject matter, which is not limited to “extreme violence and death, including bodily mutilations, cannibalism, rape and self-harm”.

Shakespeare’s play, written between 1588 and 1593, includes 14 deaths and alludes to other off-stage barbarism, as Roman general Titus seeks revenge for the death of his children, including by putting the remains of two slain enemies into a pie which he then feeds to their mother.

Ms Christian had to devise a way to stage all this carnage in the Globe’s smaller Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is usually lit by candlelight, and believes her symbolic use of candles will offer audiences the same levels of violence but in a different way.

She explained: “Each person will have a candle, a bit like the candles on your dinner table, a fairly long tapered candle. That is their light, and it will literally be snuffed out.

“Then imagine another character taking a meat cleaver, a meat tenderizer, and smashing that candle, spraying wax all over the room, to the point where performers may need to put on safety goggles and safety gloves. It’s a different approach to violence.” Ms Christian has also suggested that heat guns might be used to melt the candles as the wax would “drip like blood”.

Ms Christian floated the idea of wielding blowtorches against the candles, but said that hot wax would be a problem for health and safety.

There were concerns for health and safety in 2014 when Lucy Bailey brought Titus to the stage, and scores of people fainted during its summer run.

Ms Bailey said: “We viewed the piece as a kind of bloodsport.”

Both Ms Christian and Ms Bailey have said that Shakespeare’s first tragedy has a strong message about violence and revenge, and deserves a revival.

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2022-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/281681143889914

Daily Telegraph