A theatre group has vowed to make their production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus more obviously racist in the hopes of highlighting the Bard’s alleged bigotry.
An all-female production of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus — a particularly bloody tragedy play centring around revenge — has reportedly vowed to make the play appear more racist to modern audiences in the hopes of drawing attention to the legendary playwright’s own alleged bigotry.
The play is to be hosted by the historic Globe Theatre, which earlier this year hit the headlines when it announced it would run a play depicting France’s Joan of Arc as a transgender individual with they/them pronouns.
According to a report by The Telegraph, the director of the new production of the play, Jude Christian, said that she wanted to make dialogue surrounding one African character in the play more racist so as to more accurately reflect the sentiments found in the original work.
The reworked elements in the play reportedly surround the character of Aaron the Moor, a villainous character responsible for various acts of rape and murder who ends up having an illegitimate child with Tamora, the Queen of the Goths.
Aaron’s mixed-race child is looked upon with particular ire by characters within the play, with one unnamed nurse describing them as being a “joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue” that is “as loathsome as a toad”.
“The racism in the play is masked by Shakespeare’s language,” Christian reportedly said. “What we’ve done is show clearly what the words meant in Shakespeare’s time.”
Saying that words such as “moor” will be replaced with the likes of “black” in the production, the director goes on to claim that Aaron “talks about anti-black racism” in the play, during which he also encourages the gang rape of the hero’s daughter.
While this aim to make one of Shakespeare’s plays more obviously racist may strike many as odd, the Globe Theatre has previously hosted plays that take far greater creative licence when it comes to history and the literary canon.
For example, the theatre hit the headlines earlier this year after announcing it would be running a production of a play starring Joan of Arc which depicts the Catholic saint, not as a woman, but as a transgender individual with the pronouns they/them.
Titled I, Joan, the production reframes the struggles of the tragic teenage hero, who ended up being burnt at the stake for the sake of her faith and the freedom of France, as instead being about championing pro-transgender values.
“History has provided countless and wonderful examples of Joan portrayed as a woman. This production is simply offering the possibility of another point of view,” a statement from the theatre on the production published earlier this year read.
“We are not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last,” it went on to say.
The Globe Theatre has also previously added trigger warnings to other famous Shakespearean plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, as well as Julius Caesar.
“Content guidance: Depictions of war, self-harm and suicide, stage blood and weapons including knives,” the warning for Julius Caesar reportedly read.