Titus Andronicus (review)

Reviews 127 good terminus. Locke's work encapsulates many of the themes dealt with from the opening pages of this tome. A sense of coherence is captured through the interplay of notions of law,religion,what can be known, and when laws can be broken in the name of religion. Might most of this be said without reference to 'poUtical' thought altogether? That question was central to the fundamental flaw in the previous volume in the series. It is not entirely marginal to this more satisfying one. There are misprints: on pages 105, 357, 411, 505, 536, and 704. The biographical information is splendid but George Lawson was not a presbyterian. Conal Condren School of Political Science University of N e w South Wales Dessen, Alan C, Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare in performance), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1989; cloth; pp. 123; 9 plates; R.R.P. AUSS91.00. Alan Dessen opens his account with the observation that to offer a book-length study of Titus Andronicus is to risk derision. Even in this detailed and perceptive analysis of a number of recent productions, one can see why. This, the earliest and most violent of Shakespeare's tragedies, is undoubtedly powerful, but the problems it presents are relatively simple and repetitious. Nevertheless, within the limits imposed by the format of the series and the play itself, Dessen writes clearly and interestingly. The important recorded stage history of the play starts, in this century, with Olivier playing the lead in Peter Brook's famous 1955 production for the R.S.C.. It must have been popular in its own time, but as early as 1614 Jonson was able to make a stage joke about its, and The Spanish Tragedy's, oldfashionedness . After the Restoration, it was only staged in Ravenscroft's version, far removed from Shakespeare's play. Critically, when it was noticed at aU, it was dismissed as probably not by Shakespeare, quite without structure, and altogether too violent to be endured. That remained the accepted view until Brook's production, since when the play has been, theatrically at least, rehabilitated. Dessen makes it clear, though, that an urge to rewrite, emend and alter has persisted, quietly among the scholarly editors, more obviously in the cuts and alterations that directors make. The central question is, of course, what to do with the violence. Either one styUzes it, as Brook did, though some members of even that audience fainted, or one makes it as realistic and as horrifying as possible. Either way, one then comes up against the second problem: the ornateness of some of the poetry. In an otherwise realistic performance, this may provoke undesired laughter. Even 128 Reviews in a stylized context, it may still seem too far removed from the urgencies of the plot. Dessen's method is to describe what has been done with certain crucial scenes in a number of post-1955 productions. He concentrates on three: the Brook/Olivier R.S.C. version, thetelevisionfilm directed by Jane HoweU for the B.B.C., and Deborah Warner's 1987 production, also for the R.S.C., with Brian Cox as Titus. Directorial choices at key points and their effects are described, showing that both Brook's stylization of the honor and Howell's exploitation of it through the realistic medium of television involved considerable cutting and reananging. Not only were these versions very different from each other, they were also some way from what Shakespeare wrote. By contrast Dessen argues, Warner and her cast 'trusted' the play and thetextand so were able to explore and reveal its possibilities, showing not only that it is performable but also that so treated, it has a complexity and coherence that other productions miss. This may only mean that Dessen agrees with Warner's reading but it does allow him to make more generally pertinent critical comments on the play as well as describe its recent stagings. That is something of a bonus for the general reader, not so interested in the detailed description of productions. So also is the fascinating picture which emerges of the straggle that actors, directors, and reviewers have had in accommodating their twentiethcentury sensibilities, nurtured on real...