During a quick trip back to CA to interview for my new job, I rescheduled the first play of the California Shakespeare Theater’s season that I had missed the previous week. This was Titus Andronicus, which was the first time Cal Shakes had done this play. I had been waiting ten years to see it as Jonathan Moscone had dropped it from the first season he became artistic director where it was originally scheduled.
It was a very pleasant evening, and it was a very good production. It was nice to see a more sparse set in the Cal Shakes mode after the expensive productions at DC’s Shakespeare Theater Company. The acting was good in this grisly revenge tragedy. There was also some very interesting theatrical staging, for example when one of the characters falls in a pit, they had people carrying partitions surround the actor, and the other actors talked off the edge of the stage. The action flowed back and forth, but it was an interesting way to engage the audience’s imagination with a simple staging device.
I very much enjoyed the evening, even though I had to fly back early the next morning. I think I may go through some withdrawal going from four theater subscriptions to one, so hopefully Cal Shakes can keep me sustained till I can broaden out a bit again.