Titus Andronicus April 14, 2007

'Titus Andronicus' was the single most popular play in Shakespeare's theatre during his lifetime. Today it is considered one of his bloodiest. Made popular in 1999 with Julie Taymor's acclaimed film version, the play is set in late-imperial Rome, where the Roman general Titus Andronicus has returned triumphant from the Gothic wars. Leading the fallen Goth queen, Tamora, and her sons as prisoners, Titus stumbles into a power struggle between the late emperors' sons Saturninus and Bassianus. Titus fatally backs Saturninus, who promptly turns on the general and marries Tamora. The crimes against Titus' family escalate as his sons are killed and his daughter Lavinia brutally raped by Tamora's sons. Yet for all the violence, Shakespeare's passionate language balances beauty and barbarity, humanity and atrocity.