Thanks to our recent political season, everybody understands the advantage of low expectations.

"Titus Andronicus," the first Shakespeare production that the Tin Ceiling has staged, benefits from that advantage as much as any unprepared debater ever did.

With its unprepossessing, eccentrically heated storefront venue and its ragbag costumes and props, Tin Ceiling practically screams at its audience: Do not expect too much.

This turns out to be good advice for much of the performance, which Robert Strasser directs.

But it also means that when a couple of scenes inexplicably burst to life, they create incendiary, memorable theater.

An early tragedy, "Titus" is so violent, gruesome and plain weird that it makes "Macbeth" look like a midsummer night, or anyway like a dream. The plot is confusing at best — and we are not at best here. In fact, the first few scenes are nearly incomprehensible. (Many of the actors aren't comfortable with Shakespeare's language; one, who seems to be going for some kind of early-English accent, sounds like he's speaking Danish. Wrong play.)

But you can probably discern the main points. Titus (Robert Mitchell), a noble Roman general home from victory, and Tamora (Amy Kelly), the defeated Goth queen who marries the emperor Saturnius, embark on a cycle of revenge against each other that ultimately involves rape, stabbings, the amputation of body parts, beheadings and finally cannibalism. Yes. Onstage.

Mitchell traverses this "heroic" journey — gravity, grief, grinning madness — with dignified aplomb. Kelly and Alan David, as Tamora's lover, dig into evil-doing with relish.

But the play belongs to Titus' daughter, Lavinia (Tara Lawton), for whom Tamora engineers a hideous fate. As the young noblewoman pleads for mercy (not forthcoming) and, later, reveals herself in pain and humiliation to her family, Strasser's bare-bones approach pays off. The strap of Lavinia's slip drops from her shoulder; Titus, crushing her into his arms, squeezes his eyes shut because he can't bear to look at her; his brother Marcus (John Johnson) tries to give him his handkerchief, but it's soaking wet from his own tears.

There's so little onstage that every single detail, every twinge of agony, hits home. In its horror and intimacy, the scene hovers between the unwatchable and the unignorable. That's a high, passionate perch for theater to reach, worth applauding no matter what comes before or after.

jnewmark@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8243