Titus Andronicus: An All-Female Production

You can’t get away from the blood. In Titus Andronicus, the most violent of Shakespeare’s tragedies, there are gallons of the stuff. Smooth Faced Gentlemen give it a suitably scarlet-stained production, but with a slight twist. Here, the blood is paint, brandished on brushes and splashed liberally across the stage.

It makes for a striking visual concept. The stage is marked from the start with the blemishes of violence, the splatters of previous performances nodding to the bloodbath still to come. Paint-smeared outfits stand in as the armour of war. The cartoon-bright red paint is also a statement of intent about Smooth Faced Gentlemen’s approach to the play, which is more romp than tragedy.

The lightness of this interpretation works well for a narrative that has more than a hint of the ridiculous. The rising body count and escalating horror are, after all, pretty hard to take seriously. Here, we’re given permission to laugh, as Smooth Faced Gentlemen’s all-female cast deliberately draw out the humour. By the end, Emily Bairstow’s vengeful Tamora is nearing pantomime villain levels of grinning evil, while Anita-Joy Uwajeh puts in a gleeful performance as unrepentant Aaron. 

If the darker, grislier aspects of the play are rushed past, it’s in the service of an interpretation that consistently puts entertainment first. Like the same company’s Othello over at Underbelly, this is fresh, fast-paced Shakespeare, offering a watchable whistle-stop tour through one of the Bard’s classics.