Titus: A Final Banging on About

  Contemporary Doodle. 

(Titus' sleevelessness seems a bold costume choice, given what's coming.)

 

 I've not much more to say: Shakespeare never stopped having fun with meta-theatrical villains, but Aarons' successors would concentrate more on the mechanics of a convincing performance, rather than just seeing what they could get away with. As indeed would Shakespeare. 

 Concerning the play's many classical allusions, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics – now on its sixth series – is more than just a great show, it's an education, and here's her episode on Ovid, whose Metamorphoses was such a huge influence on not just this play but every character in it. Natalie doesn't mention the story of Philomel – and who can blame her – but she does talk about Actaeon (whose fate Tamora threatens Bassianus with) thus: "It's a recurring theme in the Metamorphoses that when people lose their power, they lose their voice." 

 In a reading, losing one's voice can mean complete disappearance; but turning the pages, and writing in the sand, Lavinia gains her voice again, and that's why I thought we should hear it. It's why I also wanted us to hear the rustling of Titus' letters, and why I didn't want Chiron and Demetrius to scream, because they too should vanish as soon as their mouths are stopped. Performing a reading, rather than a staging, one notices far more the absences resulting from violence – such as Lavinia's voice, or Titus' hand – rather than the resultant gore. So I got lucky there. 

 When first staged, I think they used real blood, purchased from the butchers, but does anyone knows how what they did for the scene with Titus' cousins firing arrows up to Heaven? Elizabethan theatres had open rooves, of course, so maybe the actors just fired arrows into the air and out into the street. That must have been fun. 

 Finally, while shedding tears over Titus' corpse, and deciding the fates of Aaron and the bodies of Saturninus and Tamora, I don't think anybody in the last scene ever mentions Lavinia, even in passing. 

 Here's the whole thing: