thrillpeddlers -- mondo andronicus: shakespeare for the fringe

by Jonathan Gonzalez
From The Daily Star, September 12, 1997

Titus Andronicus, written in the early 16th century, is possibly William Shakespeare's first play, and was widely popular with Elizabethan audiences. It was a violent, bloody, lurid Black Comedy that is similar to a modern American Auteur who mad a sensational debut with a violent, lurid, darkly funny movie called Reservoir Dogs.

When first reading Titus Andronicus, I was struck by how contemporary the plot felt: outrageous violence mixed with humor that was too sly and ironic to be unintentional. For the Fringe Festival, we distilled the play into an hour, keeping the sensational elements and the violence, while adding elements to help adapt the piece for modern audiences.

Director Russell Blackwood found a link between Titus Andronicus and the MONDO genre of films that peaked in popularity in the 1960's. MONDO, now in the common vernacular representing anything strange or bizarre, dealt with exotic, violent, and sexual taboos presented to the "normal" viewer through the eyes of a grave narrator.

Our final version of Andronicus combines Shakespeare's basic plot language; a narrative through-line taken from the descriptive passages found elsewhere in the play; bloody effects and moments of violence influenced by Le Theatre du Grand Guignol -- a French horror theatre which, by its use of exquisitely dressed aristocrats having horrible things happen to them, is an ancestor of MONDO. Grand Guignol gives us a link through the keyhole of normal society into the forbidden psychological world of the taboo subconscious.

Added to all of these elements are a few scenes taken from a German translation of Titus Andronicus, which heightened the sensationalism of the play, and continuous Jungle Music mixed live by a DJ, which provide an eclectic mix of subterranean sounds, sonic moods, and ultra-hyper rhythms -- the perfect parallel soundtrack.