That stage direction alone should tell you what I'm talking about today. Yes, it's Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus.

I wasn't looking forward to this one. It's despised by critics, who regard it as beneath Shakespeare to write such gory trash. Many in the past have tried to indicate that either a) it was the first thing he ever wrote, and thus immature (likely untrue), or b) that he never wrote it. As always, if critics (especially Victorian critics) didn't like a Shakespeare play, they tried to prove it wasn't his, as Shakespeare must be PERFECT.

And yet? The play was a HUGE hit in Shakespeare's time, right from the start. Audiences adored it, and it was staged again and again after its debut. And indeed, whenever people in the twentieth century have tried to stage it, they've found a very appreciative audience, ready to come in and watch the madness.

When I started to read it, I assumed that the reason for the popularity was simply because of the violence and bloodshed. No play of Shakespeare's is gorier than this one, not even the histories with all their battles come close. The daughter of the main character is raped, then has her tongue cut out and her hands cut off. And yet? She continues to be a major character even after this.

As you can imagine, this is sometimes difficult to perform. There comes a time, usually about when Lavinia takes stick in mouth to write out the names of her attackers, that you risk the audience laughing at the sheer OTT-ness. One scene in particular, which features the stage direction I have in my header, has Titus suddenly start to laugh. It's even written out, "Ha, ha, ha!" A short bark of a laugh. And yet, its tragedy is that it signifies that Titus has finally slipped from grief into insane revenge.

This is, by the way, the play that features our tragic hero as master chef, serving up his daughter's rapists to their mother in pies. Eat your heart out was never so literal. And then come the deaths, and the other deaths, and still more deaths. It's rather odd that one of the most well-rounded subtle characters is the main villain, Aaron.

Who, by the way, is black. Something that proved very interesting to many who rewrote this play for Restoration and Victorian times. Naturally, the violence and rapes had to go. So they were left to insert other things. And black actors of the time (and there were a few) rewrote Aaron to be the tragic equal of Titus, almost an Othello character. In the original, Aaron's son is murdered and Aaron himself is buried up to his neck in the ground to die of thirst and starvation. Yeah, bit of a difference between that and the rewrite.

This is not a great play. It is, as you have no doubt noticed, about as subtle as a truck. But it's a fascinating play, and one of Shakespeare's most theatrical. In addition, its themes of big-R REVENGE would be re-examined in his greatest tragedy, Hamlet.