Alexander has astutely toned down the play's specifically period aspect, locating it in timeless limbo land, where baggy track-suit bottoms rather than togas are worn. Designer Ruari Murchison keeps the stage bare, with Tim Mitchell's eerie shafts of grey light suggesting that this is a world where the dark night of the soul holds firm. The tone is sophisticated, not sensational. John Lloyd Fillingham's literally limp-wristed Emperor, Saturninus and Tamora's psychopathic sons resemble petulant, rebellious schoolboys. But these are almost the only flippant touches. Otherwise, Alexander's production makes such a strong emotional impact because the extremities of suffering and pain are conveyed in an appropriately Stoic style of control and Senecan containment. There is no flash or flamboyance, except from Joe Dixon who, instead of playing Aron as a man relishing his own wickedness, presents him absurdly as a suffering hero.