Titus Andronicus: An All-female Production

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Smooth Faced Gentlemen's vision of Titus Andronicus: An All-female Production takes place between white walls. White canvas, white plastic – the stage that's been set for this presentation of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy is eerily, promisingly bare. By the show's closing lines, those same walls are spattered in Roman and Goth arterial blood, the end-product of Shakespeare's most grisly, unforgiving work.

It is perhaps the greatest compliment to give an all-female team that its audience isn't once distracted by an absence of men. To the contrary, the cast embraces the play's trademark brutality with adrenaline-spiking passion. Titus Andronicus is the Shakespearean equivalent of Rambo IV, and if there had been any ideas about the ensemble softening the play's thematic blows (rape, decapitation, forced cannibalism) then they were wholly quashed by the ninth or tenth throat-slitting.

Titus…'s cast is powerful indeed – Henri Merriam's Andronicus straddles the line between rage and madness artfully. And Francesca Binefa's multitude of roles (including power-hungry emperor Saturninus) betrays a fluency with both material and craft rarely seen in actors under thirty. But the show is not without faults. A costume choice demarcating Goths from Romans reads more West Side Story than 5th Century Rome. An otherwise clever device for representing blood—with paint, and paintbrushes as swords—makes it tricky to keep track of who's been sliced, as actors in the same drenched tunics take on multiple characters. And some performers seem to confuse ear-shattering projection for emotional depth. But innovative narrative choices and engaging brutality make it an arresting Fringe hour.