The Seoul Shakespeare Company: Titus Andronicus

For the next two weekends, The Seoul Shakespeare Company will be performing the play Titus Andronicus. Considered to be Shakespeare’s first play, Titus Andronicus weaves a tale of mystery and intrigue with love, horror, violence and racism. Those fans of Game of Thrones will find this play especially appealing.

With the amount of gore and barbarity along with the different families seeking power and revenge plot after revenge plot, it’s Game of Thrones with a beginning, middle and and ending in 3 hours and 15 minutes. If you don’t know the story of Titus Andronicus, then now is a perfect time to take in a show.

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Review

Michael Downey as Titus, Miles Meili as Marcus and Lauren Ash-Morgan as Tamora take on the leads in this performance and deliver the lines with power, delicateness and a hint of humor in just the right spots. While all three of them seem right at home with the Shakespearean English and the lines roll off the tongue, that can’t be said for all of the actors, but the effort is certainly there. Alex Sawyer as Demetrius and Charles Jeong playing his brother, Chiron are standouts with their believable cruel and violent behavior managing to make the skin crawl with the amount of evil they are able to portray.

All of the actors show an overwhelming passion on stage and even though the theater was beyond hot, it was difficult not to become invested in the characters and hope that there could somehow be a happy ending in this tragedy.

The Seoul Shakespeare Company was founded in 2010 and has been producing must see performances ever since. This one is certainly one to be included among their greats with past favorites including The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth. There are just two more weekends to catch a show, but with two performances a day for the next two weekends, there’s definitely time!

What to know

Dates and times:
Saturday, May 30: 7pm
Sunday, May 31: 2pm, 7pm
Saturday, June 6: 2pm, 7pm
Sunday, June 7: 2pm, 7pm
Saturday, June 13: 2pm, 7pm
Sunday, June 14: 2pm, 7pm

Location: Theater Egg and Nucleus 알과핵 소극장

Directions: Hyehwa Station (혜화역) (Line 4), Go out exit 2. Turn left at the first road (at the Dunkin Donuts) and walk for about a block. The theater will be on your left.

Tickets: online: W20,000; at the door: W25,000

Websites:

I received two free tickets to attend this show, if I would write about it on my blog, but all of the opinions in this post are my own.