Titus Andronicus as musical theatre? Playwrights take on the challenge at Fakespeare Festival

What could be funnier than a good, old fashioned Roman tragedy?

That's what two Vancouver playwrights sought to find out when they reworked Shakespeare's Titus Andronicusinto a musical comedy, while trying to staytrue to the dark subject matter of the traditional script.

Jennifer Andersen and Andrew Wade's parody, Titus: The Light and Delightful Musical Comedy, debuted last year at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

The duo have now expanded the play to a full twoacts and the new adaptation opens Saturday as part of Awkward Stage Productions' Fakespeare Festival at the York Theatre.

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A stressed-out Shakespeare trying to makeTitusAndronicusmore appealing to audiences is the play's feature plot line.

Themes of racism and rape feature heavily in Shakespeare's original version. Wade told On The Coasthost Stephen Quinn that much thought went into determining how to handle these topics with humour.

"[We are] doing it in a way where we acknowledge that most of the characters in this show are kind of racist. But we do it in a way where we hang a lantern on it and go, 'Yes audience, we acknowledge these are very racist people,'" Wadesaid.

Hesaid he hopes this approach will leave audiences laughing, while also questioning how they could find such subject matter funny.

"I want everyone to laugh and then feel bad for laughing," he said.

But ultimately, it could be the play's musical score that puts the audience in a humorous mood.

"From a musical point of view,there was a lot of what I found is a sort of Monty Python-esque humour in it," said Andersen, who wrote the script's accompanying music.

The musical repertoire does includes some Monty Python, but also features tango, funk, disco, and even some rock chord progressions from Nirvana.

"There's so much going on with this script, I thought it would be fun to play around with different musical styles," explained Andersen.

The scriptalso plays around with gender roles, with female actors taking on the roles of Titus'ssons and brother.

Andersen and Wade are hoping their parody appeals to audiences at the Fakespeare Festival, which runs Aug. 3 to 28at East Vancouver's York Theatre.

With files from CBC Radio's On The Coast

To hear the full story click on the audio labelled:Vancouver playwrights play around with the Bard's classics at Fakespeare Festival.