Chapter 17 - Circuses

It was his daughter Angela who first revealed to Bertram that it was her little brother Charles and Bertram's granddaughter Alexandra who had controversially co-directed Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's first play for the school's annual theatre production.

Shakespeare apparently wrote it when still unknown, seeking approbation from the Bogans of his day, who revelled in sex and gore. 

It's his most explicit and violent play and created a scandal when an abbreviated but not expurgated version was performed at school two years ago when the children were only thirteen.

It replaced, at the last minute, Much Ado about Nothing  that the somewhat dramatic male Drama Teacher had been coaching another group of thirteen-year-olds to play, expunged of the coarser sexual jokes.  The entire cast had suddenly become ill after the final dress rehearsal, making way for the 'arty kids' and their already workshopped Titus A.

Charles and Alex had devised the staging, including the gore covered, blood vomiting, roughly bandaged, but otherwise naked, young actress playing the raped Lavinia, 'washed cut and trimmed', who's tongue and hands have been cut off in the story. 

Several litres of real pig's blood were also used later in the production for bloodletting murder of Chiron and Demetrius.  These two are then ground in a mincer, bones and all, to be baked in the pie that is fed to their unwitting mother Tamora by Titus, in revenge for his daughter's rape and death.

Charles and Alex had told Angela, with great amusement, that advertised title Much Ado about Nothing was a perfect description of the reaction of some in the audience and the general outrage that followed.

There was certainly 'much ado' among some parents and teachers who disliked the replacement play's themes of revenge, rape and cannibalism being acted out on stage by thirteen-year-olds, including a naked girl covered in blood. 

Angela had attended one of the workshopping sessions with admiration. Charles was coaching the young actor playing Aaron making him repeatedly rehearse his lines from Act 1, Scene 2, with appropriate ribald thrusting of his hips, when he incites Chiron and Demetrius to murder and rape, taking their turns to 'revel in Lavinia's treasury'.  

Alex had felt that the budding actor had not at first fully grasped the concept of a gang rape nor the import of his lines, that needed to hold the audience agog until the real gore started to flow:

She particularly wanted his villainy to ooze at the lines:

My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;
There will the lovely Roman ladies troop:
The forest walks are wide and spacious;
And many unfrequented plots there are
Fitted by kind for rape and villany:
Single you thither then this dainty doe,
And strike her home by force, if not by words...

And Charles rehearsed again and again Aaron's call to sated-lust and rape at the lines:

The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull;
There speak, and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;
There serve your lusts, shadow'd from heaven's eye,
And revel in Lavinia's treasury.

Later, in Act 5 he must maliciously describe the aftermath of Bassianus' murder and Lavina's rape, by Chiron and Demetrius, to her brother.  A murder and rape that he had engineered. In explaining Aaron's motivations to the young actor Alex had stressed his power to make others do his bidding and the delight he takes in it.  Angela was impressed that he directed the scene with considerable insight for one so young.

Aaron. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
'Twas her two sons that murder'd Bassianus;
They cut thy sister's tongue and ravish'd her
And cut her hands and trimm'd her as thou saw'st.

Lucius. O detestable villain! call'st thou that trimming?

Aaron. Why, she was wash'd and cut and trimm'd, and 'twas
Trim sport for them that had the doing of it.

Lucius. O barbarous, beastly villains, like thyself!

The impact of the stellar performances from such young players on the audience of students, parents and teachers was electric. 

So wonderful was the staging, so professional the acting, that it was not immediately shutdown.

The most outraged parents and the Drama Teacher stormed out well before the end of the first act, intending to shut-down the stage, the lighting or the sound. 

But they got lost in a labyrinthine maze of tall partitions that had been arranged for the purpose through the darkened corridors of the school, ending up in the pitch-black gym from which they were unable to escape until they were discovered by the hocky team the next day at early morning training. 

Others, temporally swept away by the brilliant acting and spectacular staging, thought better of it the next day and joined in the outrage, while theatre critics from several progressive MV media outlets, who somehow had been tricked into attending a school play, raved about the performance as the best they had ever experienced and a new benchmark in Shakespearian theatre.  

But it had only one live performance.  You can, of course, still see a pirate version in The Cloud on your MV as there were many cameras present including a professional team from one MV station and the lead actors wore haptic body stockings to provide full 6D.  Due to her age Lavinia's treasury is fuzzed out. 

Charles and Alex became briefly famous or infamous then suddenly, a few months later, all mention of them disappeared from The Cloud, as if someone had somehow removed it.

Bertram was disappointed not to have been invited to the unheralded live performance which initially he did not realise had been directed by his son and granddaughter. Nevertheless, in the aftermath he saw a recorded version of the most ribald sections numerous times.

The repercussions included him and Samantha and Edmund and Anne being called to the school for an interview with the Headmistress and the Drama Teacher.  The Drama Teacher's distress at spending a cold night in the gym, the sabotage, the deception and the lewd content was made much worse by the poor reception for Much Ado the following night.  During the day it was suddenly sold out, many existing tickets being traded at enormous prices, but it was booed off the stage during the first act when the audience realised it was actually a poorly acted school version of Much Ado, exactly as advertised.  

As their many crimes were being recited and the inappropriateness of the material decried, Bertram realised that the Head was secretly pleased with the publicity, the critical acclaim and the evident precociousness of the children involved.  It would certainly do the school no harm.  Their collective parents too, while nodding and frowning and tut-tutting appropriately at the shocking tale, were all secretly pleased at the evident talents of Charles and Alexandra.

The departing School Captain had immediately confessed to being the mastermind behind switching the performances. Thus, Charles and Alexandra escaped blame, except by the highly suspicious Drama Teacher who soon left the school, it was whispered to be as a result of rumours of an illicit affair with one of the boys within his care. 

The School Captain had apparently planned this as a final-year prank.  She confessed to engaging Charles and Alex as paid directors to workshop Titus A and to having paid for the sets and the hired professional sound and lighting by raiding her parent's ample credit facility.  She also accepted the blame for having drugged the Much Ado players' orange-aid at the dress rehearsal to facilitate the change.  Her name was removed from the school Honour Roll and she failed to receive a reference but is now said to be earning big credit, working at some upmarket nightclub in the city - Seralio or something. 

Anyway, Bertram no longer has any concern about the abilities of his youngest child nor his future success and progress in life.  And the same goes for his granddaughter.

Titus Andronicus taught Charles and Alex a useful lesson.  Celebrity is to be avoided.  For a while, together with the disgraced School Captain, they were the darlings of the chat shows and could go nowhere unnoticed.  Bogans approached them for autographs whenever they went out of the house.  Some lay in wait for them as they left school. They could no longer use public transport or meet their friends anywhere public without attracting a crowd of young admirers.

That was when they removed all public references to themselves and Alex decided to create the NYGirls as her own celebrities to do her bidding.  At her suggestion Charles acquired his first football club so that he could own some celebrity players and also enjoy fame vicariously.