urban excavations

Titus Andronicus
Featuring Patrick Page, Jesse Aaronson, Blair Baker, McKinley Belcher III, Francesca Faridany
Red Bull Theater at Pershing Square Signature Center
March 18, 2026 – May 3, 2026 [extension]
production site

Shakespeare’s early and bloody revenge play Titus Andronicus receives a rousting, believable, enthralling, athletic, and artfully designed production by Red Bull in its current residence at the Pershing Square Signature Center. In this rarely produced Shakespeare, the violence in action and in dialogue is so present that finding the humanity and the keys to keep a modern audience engaged is the challenge. Red Bull, this cast, and this director have met that challenge.

Adultery, rape, mutilation, and murder express physically the violent political machinations that undergird this story. Titus (growly and magnificent Patrick Page) is a Roman general, commands on a whim that the oldest son of the Captive queen of the Goths Tamora (Francesca Faridany) be not only killed but dismembers and burned. This action is met by Tamora, playing the long game, who marries Rome’s emperor Saturninus (Matthew Amendt) which allows her to corral her other sons Chiron (Jesse Aaronson) and Demetrius (Adam Langdon) to wreck revenge on Lavinia (Olivia Reis), daughter of Titus and to go further, to frame the sons of Titus for the crime. Incest! Rape!

By the end of the first Act, Titus is laughing at the chaos. “I have not another tear to shed,” he notes, taking the wind out of us — stunned as we are by the violence we have just observed, pondering what horrors would be next, considering how to respond. And we soon see that these horrors become political horrors at first glance — from fascist uniforms to army fatigues, Titus now leads a rag-tag assemblage now to continue his rampage.

Titus is both villain and mourning father, a man who has lost his political power yet attempts to hold fast to holdings by brute force. He is noble, he is tender, he is clear, he makes us care about this rampaging monster, evoking thoughts of Lear with his youngest daughter when we see Titus with Lavinia. Other parent characters keep us rooted in parental passions, all the more credit to director Berger and to these performers. Tamora, from Goth queen to Roman empress, feels pain over her own machinations, and Aaron (McKinley Belcher III), Tamora’s erstwhile lover and father of her child, is an evil outsider who shows a tender side when dealing with his baby and offers an introduction to the next chapter for this civilization.

Scenery by Beowulf Boritt is flexible and evocative (trees to tables to sudden dangerous holes in the ground), and lighting by Jiyoun Chang is fearsome shadows and candlelight, spotlights and sweet focus. Emily Rebholz’s marvelous costumes offer the range of flowing gowns to tightly hewn military ensembles to forest fatigues besmirched by the dirt of days sleeping on the ground. Fight direction by Rick Sordelet is superb and frightful, not merely athletic but terrifying, as fights and rapes like these should be if character and story development is the point rather than shoot-’em-up action excitement.

This is a story of politics and bloodlines. At the end of this play, it is Tamora and Aaron’s children, the Moorish bastard baby, who is the youngest and newest citizen of this bloody realm and perhaps may live to take on its challenges.

© Martha Wade Steketee (March 30, 2026)

Playwright | William Shakespere
Director | Jesse Berger
Set Design | Beowulf Boritt
Costume Design | Emily Rebholz
Lighting Design | Jiyoun Chang
Sound Design and Composition | Adam Wernick