Setting ‘Titus’ Amid the Mafia Proves Deadly

Given Stages’ agenda of producing new plays in rapid succession and of swimming upstream of Orange County’s predominantly conservative theater scene, leave it to the Anaheim theater to produce Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” as one of its rare forays into the classics--or any play older than three weeks.

“Titus,” that poor, redheaded stepchild in the Bard’s canon, that first flawed stab at tragedy, that ridiculously overplotted exercise in Seneca-style ultraviolence. “Titus,” that play even Shakespeare-based companies almost never do. Of course Stages would do it.

What the group has done to it is another matter. The excessively wrought drama by a young Shakespeare out to make his mark with something spectacular just screams out to be toyed with. A new independent film version, we’re told, turns the play into a horror movie with togas. For the Stages production, co-directors Adam Clark and K.C. Mercer have shifted the action from the original Roman Empire setting to a contemporary one in which we’re to believe the Mafia rules Italy.

This works in theory, but not in practice.

Shakespeare’s Roman leaders enter with a line-of-succession problem; since the old emperor is dead, Saturninus should be crowned. But Titus, just back from defeating rebellious Goths, may be a popular choice. Titus turns down the crown, but ungrateful Saturninus is jealous of him and wishes the worst on Titus anyway. And when Titus insists on executing a Goth prisoner and son of Tamora, the Goth queen, she hatches an endlessly bloody revenge plot on Titus with help from the evil Aaron, an African Moor. Titus, in a hyper-violent second-half comeback, gets back at Tamora and Saturninus.

Clark doesn’t so much revise the tale as replace Romans with Mafioso, and move Aaron from Africa to Ireland (as Aaron McMoore, played by Patrick Gwaltney with a wavering accent). Guns replace swords, and an early assassination splatters the stage with blood. Brian Kojac’s Marcus, Titus’ somber, mature brother, is very much the calming consiglieri, like Robert Duvall in “The Godfather.” Todd Langwell’s Titus is very much the emotional powder keg, like James Caan from “The Godfather.”

Fine, but who are these “Goths”? What is the aim of Tracy Perdue’s classy but devious Tamora that the Mafia went after her in the first place? How does an Irish thug get caught up in Mafia wars? And how do greasy Goth guys like Demetrius and Casso (Michael M. Miller and Erik Peterson) know verses of Horace, while Mafiosi know Ovid?

Clark has gone part of the way in his revision, but not nearly far enough. (Perhaps, given Stages’ hyperactive work schedule--is this theater racing against the Y2K crisis, or what?--he ran out of time.)

The result is an often silly mess, compounded by under-rehearsed actors with terrible or inaudible accents, and Mercer’s inability to stage difficult group scenes.

With help from aptly named Spooky FX Productions, Mercer is better at the gross-out stuff (hands sawed off, point-blank shootings, cut-out tongues, gutted corpses, heads served on a platter). This, after all, is the real reason for doing “Titus,” which was an exercise in grossing out Elizabethan audiences. This time, the exercise seems to have run out against Stages’ ever-ticking clock.

* “Titus Andronicus,” Stages, 1188 N. Fountain Way, Anaheim. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday. $10. Ends Nov. 1. (714) 630-3059. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

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“Titus Andronicus,”

Todd Langwell: Titus Andronicus

Brian Kojac: Marcus Andronicus

Tracy Perdue: Tamora

Patrick Gwaltney: Aaron McMoore

Frank Tryon: Saturnine

Melanie Baker: Lavinia

A Stages production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Co-directors: Adam Clark and K.C. Mercer. Lights: William Mittler. Music: Michael M. Miller and Matrick Black.