Thought to be Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy, Titus Andronicus is a sordid tale of revenge and political turmoil. Rome is in turmoil. With the Emperor dead, his two sons quarrel over who should succeed him; but neither are as popular as the general Titus Andronicus, returned to Rome victorious after a ten-year campaign, with Tamora, Queen of the Goths, and her three sons as his prisoners. Shunning the throne, he endorses Saturninus as successor but when the new emperor spurns Titus’s amity and chooses Tamora for his wife, she quickly begins to plot a murderous revenge of barely conceivable cruelty.