Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a truly terrible play. The writing is decent, but the subject material…. ugh! So much violence and nastiness and evil, it made me cringe.
Titus Andronicus is a Roman general just back from war with the Goths, and he kills the son of Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, starting a cycle of revenge that ends with lots of blood on both sides.

It’s a tragedy, so I know nearly everyone is going to die, but still… really over the top violence and bloodshed.

Titus has about 7 living sons (I lost count) at the beginning of the play, and all but one are dead by the end. They are stabbed, framed for murder and executed, banished to the wilderness, or killed in the wars. Some are even killed by their own family. Messed up family.

Tamora has 3 sons, and after doing heinous deeds and plotting evil, they all die too. Their throats are slit, the blood is collected in a basin, they’re chopped into bits, their bones ground up for flour and baked into a lovely casserole. Yeah, cannibalism in Rome. Messed up Rome.

The worst part is when Lavinia, Titus’ daughter, is kidnapped and raped by the evil Goth sons of Tamora. They cut out her tongue, so she can’t tell anyone who raped her, and they cut off both her hands, so that she can’t write down their names. Messed up and gross and ew.

There are so many things I hated about this play. I can’t even imagine it actually being produced, because blood and guts and yucky are in every scene.
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