PARENTAL GUIDELINES |
The beliefs that parents wish to instill in their children can vary greatly; therefore, we have listed moments in the play which may assist parents in making their decisions for attendance.
All plays evolve throughout the rehearsal and performance process. The content listed below has been created before the show opens, so we are unable to list every objectionable moment that may occur during the performance.
Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare’s most violent play, classified a “Revenge Tragedy.” Like all Revenge Tragedies, it is filled with murder, rape, and revenge plots. To today’s audiences it will play much like a modern horror film, with graphic violence and some disturbed humor.
NOTE: The following lists all actions in the show. Those with a marking next to them will be edited down (*) or will be cut (**) for school performances.
Intense Scenes
- This production of Titus Andronicus pulls no punches when it comes to intense scenes. The violent scenes and climactic bloodbath may be horrifying.
- The show features a musical score of grunge and speed metal music.
Adult Language
- No modern curse words or expletives are used in the play.
- Although there is no modern profanity, there is rough language, bawdy plays-on-words, and some rude gestures.
- Rape and adultery are subjects in the play.
- Racist comments are made by characters in the play.
Sexual References
- *An adulterous couple is shown passionately kissing in the woods.
- *Two rapists assault a young woman and drag her off.
- *A rape takes place offstage, afterwards, the two rapists taunts their victim with rude gestures.
- The personification of Murder, Revenge and Rape are characters in the play.
Violence
- The ashes of 2 dead soldiers are poured into a grave.
- A prisoner of war is selected for sacrifice. He is killed offstage and his blood is brought back onstage and poured into the grave.
- A man in anger shoots his son with a pistol. Graphic blood is shown.
- A man is stabbed to death in front of his new wife. The corpse is thrown into a pit, and the woman is hauled off to be raped.
- We see the rape victim with her hands chopped off and her tongue cut out. Blood pours from her mouth staining her white dress.
- A man’s hand is chopped off with a meat cleaver as a ransom for his sons. The hand is put in a zip-lock bag. The hand is returned with the severed heads of two of his sons--each wrapped in butcher paper. When the man and his family take these body parts away, the rape victim carries the hand in her mouth.
- A nurse takes a baby who is the fruit of adultery to his father to kill. Instead the father stabs the nurse.
- A man threatens a father with the murder of his baby. After a confession of crimes even more horrific than what we have already witnessed, the father is saved from hanging to await still worse punishment.
- Two men are laid out onto a table, stripped to the waist and their throats slit. Baggies of blood are poured onto their backs. The blood is caught in a bowl until their bodies go limp.
- The corpses are served in pies at a banquet where the parents are present.
- A series of killings happen very fast at the end. A young woman’s throat is cut and three people have buckets of blood thrown on them, signifying their death.
- No drugs, no smoking.
- Glasses of fake alcohol may be drunk in the production (we do not know at this time as we are still in pre-production).
