"When no friends are by, men praise themselves..."

 So here goes.

 

Again, spoilers.

 Long before I read or saw Titus Andronicus I'd known how it ended because of Brian Cox's Acting in Tragedy posted above, whose standalone quote - "One of the myths I'd like to dispel* is that tragedy cannot be funny" - became a guiding principle for me, and something the play itself seemed to really be leaning into when I finally got round to reading it at university. As I said in my introduction to the play on Monday though (okay, Tuesday) the tone of Titus isn't a mystery, it's Horror, so I tried to give it the full Tobe Hooper, which helped me realise I'll probably need to take a break soon.

 Knackering.

 However smudgy some of this week's work might be though, at 3:48am on this Saturday morning I can honestly I say I'm really proud of how this turned out. Last Sunday I noted some of the decisions I'd already made (containing spoilers if you haven't already seen the video below): 

 "The Andronici will probably be Welsh: Titus deep and exhausted, Marcus level, Lucius bordering on the shrill... Aaron will be a cockerney villain, and cry uncontrollably with laughter recounting his evils in Act 5.... The eating of the pies will bring Titus no solace at all though, there's no such thing as revenge, and the murder of his daugher will be a last ditch attempt to find solace in the precedents of mythlogy." 

 That last decision wasn't necessarily what I ended up playing, which probably comes across as more premeditated, but I knew I had to decide whether or not Lavinia was consenting to her own death, and since in this presentation she'd have no presence because she had no lines, there was no way to signal that consent, so it would have to be without, and since I didn't fancy playing "hey it's an honour killing, they were different times, potato potarto" - and there's nothing in the text to suggest I should - the whole story had to be secretly heading towards this moment, a far darker ending than the more famous serving up of Chiron and Demetrius in pasties, and so tradition had to be monstered, and especially the folly of Titus' even small-c conservatism. The extensive classical references made more sense here too; people were trying to understand their horrible lives through the stories that mirror them. All that I realised on Sunday. Here are some things I only realised today: 

I probably had to decide in what state Aaron's child was presented in the final scene, as there's no clue in the actual text whether they're alive or dead. I went with Lucius keeping his oath (that's me mewling in the background, you can probably tell) and I really enjoy how it affects Aaron's final line... Aaron's mocking pronunciation of "god" felt like maybe one quirk too many until I came to Lucius having to say the word immediately afterwards, and then it felt like a good and useful gag, speaking of which... I hadn't been paying nearly enough attention to Tamora this week. I'd decided she would be Scottish but that was kind of it (at least I'd decided Bassianus would be boring) so I finally put more work into her today, and that "yeah, maybe reel it a touch?" glance she gives Chiron was my favourite thing to look back and watch... After editing the video I realised I'd unconsciously used rain again as a shorthand for exile. I just thought the scene could do with some thunder... Having decribed the Emperor as a villian yesterday, I love the intimation that if Titus had actually just come to him with Lavinia's accusations, he would have got justice.

Here's act five, lovelies, and a playlist of all five acts is here.