ACTING SHAKESPEARE: A Roundtable Discussion with Artists from the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2012 Production of Titus Andronicus

Abstract

Flachmann: Welcome to the actor roundtable discussion on Titus Andronicus, part of this year’s Wooden O Symposium. After an initial wave of popularity during Shakespeare’s time, this play has gotten some remarkably bad press, all the way from Edward Ravenscroft in 1687, who called it “a heap of rubbish,” to T.S. Elliot’s infamous comment that it was “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written.” All I can say in response is that they obviously didn’t see your brilliant production of the play. [applause] So my first question is, how did you guys solve this difficult script? What did you do to make this play, which has gotten so much bad publicity, such a wonderful production? Who wants to respond to that?