Page:Titus Andronicus (1926) Yale.djvu/133

Titus Andronicus A century and a quarter elapsed before Titus and Aaron again walked the boards. Another much-altered version of the text was used, prepared for the occasion by C. A. Somerset, the author of Shakespeare's Early Days, a popular work of the time. The play was performed at the Britannia Theatre in London, the opening performance taking place on March 15, 1852. In this new version, the tragedy was given intermittently for some five years, with performances both in London and Dublin. The rôle of Aaron was taken by the famous negro tragedian, Ira Aldridge, 'the African Roscius.' Into the version employed by Aldridge there was incorporated a scene from a play called Zaraffa, the Slave King, which had been written especially for Aldridge.

It is significant with regard to the tastes of the audiences of the times that both in 1717 and in 1852 the producers of Titus felt it necessary to follow the performance of the tragedy with a farce. In 1717, 'by the desire of some Persons of Quality,' so the stage-bill informs us, Farquhar's one-act farce, The Stage-Coach, was added. In 1852 Aldridge offered a farce entitled 'Mummy' and some negro songs which he had brought from his native Maryland.

After 1857 it was sixty-six years before any producer had the desire or the hardihood to present the lamentable Roman tragedy. Under the management of Miss Lilian Baylis, the entire cycle of Shakespeare's plays was given between 1914 and 1924 at the Old Vic Theatre on the Surrey side of the Thames, an achievement which had not been accomplished since the days of Shakespeare. Titus Andronicus was produced here by Mr. Robert Atkins on October 8, 1923, the thirty-fifth of the cycle of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays. That Titus should have been included in the repertory is due, of course, not to any inherent virtues in the play itself, but to Miss Baylis's ambi-