Titus Redux, and: Hamlet, Prince of Darkness, and: Pulp Shakespeare (review)

As with any major metropolitan area, Los Angeles sees a good deal of summer Shakespeare. In 2011 alone, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Hamlet, Love's Labors Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and King Learwere among the two dozen straightforward presentations. Los Angeles also features many adaptations, often infused with the local culture (in our case, Hollywood), and the film and television influence could be seen clearly in several Shakespeare offshoots: besides the three reviewed here, there was As You Like It: The Musical!and the Troubadour Theatre Company's remounting of Fleetwood Macbeth, a blend of the Shakespearean tragedy and the eponymous band. The latter was an inspired bit of silliness that saw Macbeth sing "World Turning" during the banquet scene, "You Can Go Your Own Way" as a duet with Macduff during the final duel, and a remorseful yet wistful "Landslide" to close the show. The Royal Shakespeare Company this was not.

Clearly alluding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Titus Reduxpresented General Andronicus, returned from active duty in the empire's service and now "retired like an old tank." This adaptation reduced the scope of Shakespeare's play down to a single family's experience of posttraumatic stress syndrome. Throughout much of the play it was ambiguous whether the events were actually taking place or whether they were the imaginings of a soldier who has seen too much combat and whose government and family no longer values him. Titus's brother Marcus was presented as a conservative senator still in government service (a commercial for his re-election, ending with "I'm Marcus Andronicus, and I approve this message" ran several times during the show). As the family sat down to dinner, Titus cleared the plates and encouraged his sons Demetrius and Chiron to engage in bare-knuckle boxing on the dinner table. Tamora was presented as a Washington/military housewife, seething with anger at the death of her and Titus's eldest son in combat and at her husband's prolonged absence at war. Lavinia, their daughter doted on her father, and resented her mother during his long absence and the family collapsed into violence against one another. Aaron the Moor became a Muslim-American neighbor who may or may not be a terrorist and who may or may not be having an affair with Tamora. Titus repeatedly flashed back to moments of combat and, after leading his family in an extended dance number with American flags and patriotic...