Two contrasting plays capture 1500s England at Warwick theatre

Working with the Shakespeare Young Company, in its fourth year of training and performance, the team at the Dream Factory are performing Titus Andronicus and The Two Gentlemen Of Verona between Tuesday February 28 and Saturday March 3.

First performed in 1594, Titus is generally accepted as the bard’s first play - but, full of blood curdling episodes, horrors and cruelty the play has not been performed much in recent years.

Titus is staged in a sawdust arena suggestive of the bear baiting pits on Bankside in London in the 1500s that would house acts of cruelty alongside these plays.

Director Stewart McGill said: “Our Titus crosses time boundaries and is seen both as a primitive Elizabethan revenge drama as well as a surreal take on contemporary society.

“The pit never ceases to act as a visual metaphor to remind audiences of the daily cruelty of bear baiting before the afternoon dramas on stage. We know the play was first performed in 1594. An exciting and bold work to rehearse.”

The Two Gentlemen Of Verona is Shakespeare’s earliest comedy derived from Elizabethan romance dramas in the 1570s and 1580s.

Mary King directs in a 1920s epoch in contrast to Gill’s Titus production. She said: “Away from the sawdust and blood, our comedy suggests a frivolous, light-hearted and yet, at times, duplicitous society in which love and friendship are betrayed and exploited. It feels throughout the comedies of Shakespeare that they were very personal journeys.”

Titus Andronicus is on at the Dream Factory in Shelley Avenue, Warwick, on Tuesday February 28, Thursday March 1 and Saturday March 3 at 7.30pm, while The Two Gentlemen Of Verona takes the stage on Wednesday February 29 and Friday March 2 at 7.30pm and on Saturday March 3 at 4pm.

Tickets cost £11.50 (£7.50 concessions). Call 419555 ext 2.