Headline Jan 01, 2015/

''' HUMANITY : 

THE DARKEST SIDES '''

!WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless, wishes every student, and the whole world:  *A Very Happy New Year!*

WE LIVE IN grim and grievous times as the headlines make clear every day, but leave it to the theater to remind us that it was ever thus.

O'' Good and Fair Lord:

Thy bravest of the brave............had always their hands chained,

But raised the banner of Truth, to have every conscience trained.

Life and Light,  all so blessed and bright-...for every darkness be,

But chains of thoughts, all murdered hew,   All,   Satans do keep.

''' Anon '''

The difference is that life's woes displaced to the realm of art can sometimes achieve a salutary effect.

That is why grief on stage can be cathartic,  whereas in life it's just, well, grief.

Plays don't come much more baleful than  ''Titus Andronicus'' , the Shakespearean gore-fest that had opened this summer season at Shakespeare's Globe, where it was then joined in repertory:

By the comparatively calm  ''Antony and Cleopatra'' ,  a play in which the most envisioned onstage presence was a snake.

''Titus,''  by contrast, racks up a roll call of mutilation and death that commences early with the report that  22 sons   of  the military leader of the title have died in the service to Rome   -and that's before the play's own catalog of slaughter even kicks in.

The carnage goes on to include the rape and dismemberment of Titus's daughter, Lavinia, and the serving up of the sons of queen of the Goths, Tamora, in a gleefully prepared pie that presents:

 William Houston's as the most manically carnivorous chef around. Even  ''Sweeney Todd''  wasn't as crazed as this.

How, then, to make theatrically palatable an early tragedy from Shakespeare next to which the various eviscerations chronicled in  ''King Lear''  seem like child's play?

The director Lucy Bailey's approach to honour the savagery and poetry of the of text in equal measure while also inflecting the show with humour. 

Even so, some publicity surrounding the production over time has focused on the number of patrons: Who have passed out during a single performance: 43 is said to be the per-show record so far.

Ms Bailey previously tackled this play of the Globe in  2006 , and it was her success with  ''Titus''  then that has led to the encore engagement, albeit with a different cast.

As before, the designer William Dudley enveloped those aspects of the Globe that are open to the skies in a  velarium, or Roman-style awning, that acts as an implicit shroud.

The theater's pillars are themselves swathed in black so that ornate decoration cannot distract from the cycle of revenge that the play single-mindedly relates its escalating contest between the-

Rampaging Roman general Titus and the murderous  Goths. Unusually in Shakespeare, the play has no sub-plot.

A grizzled, goateed firgure, Mr Houston communicates the psychic bedlam into which the title character is plunged, not least when hoisting his own severed flesh up towards the godless heavens.

Though the women don't make as much of an impression as they could, the male-dominated company does find relief from the outsize testosterone in Ian Gelder as the sobriety-minded Marcus Andronicus-

Titus's brother  -a moderating presence, in a play given over memorably to excess 

The Honour and Serving of work will continue in the next publishing. Thank you for reading, and don't miss the next one.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Sweet And Hardcore '''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless