Event

TITUS ANDRONICUS

With fourteen killings, six severed members, several rapes, a live burial, one case of insanity and one of cannibalism, the world of Shakespeare's epic Titus Andronicus is a hard one for most of us to relate to, but the world in which America was founded was no less ruthless. Balagan Theatre brings to life the legendary brutality of Titus Andronicus by setting it in our own not-so-distant past: the early American West. This bloody masterwork is presented starkly and intimately in the Capitol Hill Arts Center's Lower Level. "The United States was founded through cunning and ruthless acts inspired by greed and the lust for power," director Beth Peterson writes. "These 'olden' days have been idealized for generations, glorifying the success and ignoring the treachery of our wild ways. But as we become a more enlightened society, we seem more open to explore the ugliness of our beginnings."