Can the Bard make your heart race?

IN a world where on-screen violence has become commonplace, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company is turning to science to discover whether the playwright can still make our hearts race more than 400 years on.

The renowned theatre company has started measuring the pulse of audience members as they are confronted by some of Shakespeare’s most harrowing scenes in the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus.

The play, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593, is a tale of murderous revenge and savagery.

In one scene, a bloodied Lavinia writhes on stage after rapists cut off her hands and tongue.

Audience members have been known to pass out or vomit at the play’s shocking cruelty during performances.

Becky Loftus, head of audience insight at the company, is spearheading the innovative study to measure reactions to the English Renaissance writer’s work.

“It’s notoriously Shakespeare’s bloodiest play . . . it can be quite polarising because of the amount of violence in it,” Loftus said.

“Are we inured to violence now because of things like [TV’s] Game of Thrones?” she said.

The comparative study is being carried out in the theatre and at a live-streaming of the play in a cinema in Stratford on Avon – the town in central England where Shakespeare was born in 1564.

“Some people feel that it’s never as good to be in the cinema, because you don’t get the effect of being in the room and having people act in front of you,” Loftus said.

“But others say that being in the cinema is like having the best seat in the house and you get the closer view.”

Many participants in the study, including scientist Sharon Faulkner, 60, said they were more engaged in the theatre.

“It appeals to all of your senses. I think it’s much more real,” she said.