UNCONVENTIONAL SPIN, DARING THEATER,
CAUTIOUSLY RECOMMENDED
There are sequels and there are sequels. Few can be considered as aspirational or as pioneering as Taylor Mac’s Gary, a continuation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus now playing at Redtwist Theatre. Easily the Bard’s most sensational blood fest, Redtwist brought Titus’s “vicious circle of revenge and counter-revenge” to their stage in late February and wowed the city with its excellence of production, visceral intensity and superb acting. It was Grade A Shakespeare triumphantly brought down to street level on Bryn Mawr Avenue.
William Delforge and Hannah Rhode
Gary picks up where the original play left off in the same room swathed in the aftermath of mayhem and covered in blood. The high central table, which sometimes acts as an elevated stage, is stacked with bloody corpses. Some hang from the wall. Blood is on the floors. On the walls. It’s an overwhelming picture of violent death as depicted through Eric Luchen’s vivid scenic design.
William Delforge, Cameron Austin Brown and Hannah Rhode
Gary himself is not so bleak. Rather, he’s often downright cheery. Played beautifully by William Delforge, Gary’s main line of work was that of a clown, which is not to be confused with jester. Jester would imply Gary may have entertained royalty. Instead, he was just a bloke who practiced a more pedestrian form of his craft.
Gary is also the vision of a performance artist and playwright renowned for his vehement rejection of conformity and pat categorizations. Mac wrote Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus in 2019 and although adhering to and incorporating the key elements of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus in the script, quite a bit of the feel and dynamics of Gary reflect Mac’s own sensibilities, not Shakespeare’s. Character portrayal in Gary mirror Mac’s take on human existence; making the characters decidedly unorthodox, as well as spirited.
The Rome Shakespeare paints in Titus is a volatile and dangerous place rife with chaos. In that atmosphere, it’s not so surprising that Gary somehow found himself on the receiving end of a hangman’s noose. Quick of both tongue and wit, he tells his executioners there must be something he can do that’s more productive for the empire than being hanged. That’s how he ended up in the banquet hall littered with dead bodies. His life had been spared so that he could help clean up the mess and enable the room to be used to feat the new lord of the kingdom the following day. Gary the clown becomes Gary the maid working under the tutelage of arch-perfectionist, Janice (Hannah Rhode).
Something of an absurdist comedy, the play centers around how the two mentally process the task at hand and how they view the wider world outside the room’s doors. An ultra-pragmatist, Janice is all business and prides herself as being the best of the best in the maid vocation. Unerringly focused, she provides Gary detailed instructions on many things including how to empty dead bodies of excess fluids and gases before disposing of them. Some of the explanations and their foulness seem gratuitous as Janice demonstrates to Gary how to accomplish these tasks. Much the same can be said for Gary’s inexplicable sexual attraction to corpses and the odd abundance of phallic sight gags.
To Janice’s persistent irritation, Gary often talks in rhyme. Bad for Janice but great for the audience who get to delight in Mac’s considerable gifts with language. Percolating with wit and shrewd intelligence, many of the passages Gary speaks falls on the ear like sparkling music. The issue is that it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. You keep waiting for a theme to develop or for a direction to become clear, but neither seem to materialize in a substantive way.
In addition to trying to get Janice to look beyond her current position and limitations, Gary talks about setting his own sights higher, too. To become someone who can make a positive difference in the world. He settles on aspiring to become a fool. In Gary’s mind, a fool has the capacity to turn the world away from bedlam and toward order. He’s just doesn’t seem very committed; nor is he very convincing. A state of ambiguity takes hold leaving questions about direction and purpose only slightly touched.
Carol’s return was also odd. The specter who provided the play’s introduction, Carol (Cameron Austin Brown) soon disappeared after completing her monologue and the blood spewing from her neck stopped flowing. The nursemaid who cared for the son Aaron the Moor sired with the empress in Titus, when she resurfaces, we learn she’s riddled with guilt because she feels she failed to protect the baby. Now, as a ghost, she seems doomed to spend an eternity in self-recrimination.
None of it feels particularly morose; all three characters are far too energized and engaging for that to happen. Bolstered by Steve Scott’s spry direction, Gary moves swiftly and, thanks to some wonderful performances, Delforge’s chief among them, entertainingly. That the alternative nature of the script made it difficult to absorb is unfortunate; but some may gravitate to Gary just for that reason.
photos by Tom McGrath//TCMcGPhotography
Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus
Redtwist Theatre 1044 W. Bryn Mawr
95 minutes, no intermission
Thurs-Sat at 7:30; Sun at 3:30 (understudy performances May 15 and 25)
ends on June 1, 2025
for tickets, visit Redtwist
for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago
