"Extreme laughter": Titus Andronicus, Trauma, and Early Modern Theatre

Authors

• Mark Scott

Abstract

From vomiting and fainting to cardiac arrest, modern productions of Shakespeare’s tragedy Titus Andronicus invariably provoke extreme physiological responses from theatergoers, a phenomenon described by Lucy Bailey, a recent director of the play, as “rather wonderful”: “That people can connect so much to the characters and emotion that they have such a visceral effect.” While the play’s potential to traumatize spectators is welcomed, even celebrated, by directors, its capacity to amuse has proved more troubling. Adhering to Philip Sidney’s proscription of the mixing of “horne Pipes and Funeralls”, productions of Titus often cut the text to prevent unwanted laughter erupting in the auditorium. If such policing of audience response in pursuit of generic purity is misguided, it nevertheless raises questions similar to those asked by the play itself: how were early modern theatergoers affected by their experiences at the playhouse, and why did they return to see plays like Titus again and again? I argue that Titus is best understood as both a document of and vehicle for the cultural working through of the collective trauma experienced by English early moderners in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. I explain spectators’ intense demand for this play specifically, and commercial theater more broadly, by turning to Dominick LaCapra’s theorization of “acting out” and “working through” as overlapping post-traumatic coping mechanisms and suggesting that Titus provided a potentially therapeutic – yet potentially dangerous – theatrical experience. I explore how spectators’ responses – registered via laughter or applause – might both simulate post-traumatic experience and offer a way to move through trauma.

Recommended Citation

Scott, Mark (2026) ""Extreme laughter": Titus Andronicus, Trauma, and Early Modern Theatre," Comparative Drama: Vol. 60: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol60/iss1/6