September 17, 2008: Titus Andronicus

Almost immediately my play group decided that the scene we wanted to do for our performance of Titus Andronicus was the last major scene, the one with the cannibalistic dinner party.  Even if my group hadn’t immediately expressed their wishes to perform this scene, I would still have suggested it.  Since most of the play’s scenes have quite a few characters, our decision wasn’t influenced by how many actors we had.  We already knew we had too few, so I figured we could just pick a scene we liked and hoped things worked out from there.  The final scene would probably have been one of the best too.  It’s essentially the climax of the play and there’s plenty of fun for everyone—cannibalism and death all around (four, I believe, is the count unless you include Demetrius and Chiron).  Unfortunately, even if everyone has good pacing and doesn’t die too quickly, this scene probably wouldn’t fit our fifteen to twenty minute requirement, so we agreed to also perform one of the previous scenes—the meeting between Tamora and her sons (disguised as Revenge, Rape, and Murder) and Titus.  It’s a good scene to have because it acts as a bit of a prelude, an explanation of sorts, for the meal that is to come. 

Because of my job as director, I’m going to have to somehow bring this scene to life.  I think my biggest challenge will be presenting a different vision than that of Julie Taymor.  I really enjoyed her movie and the way she directed the whole thing (especially that final climactic dinner party), but I don’t want my version to be an exact copy of hers.  As of now, I’m not sure how I want to go about this.  After today’s class on camp (and parody and pastiche) I’m hoping that some new ideas will come along.  I don’t really think Taymor’s version is campy; it’s more on the side of pastiche, if I have to label it.  Perhaps if I try to look at the work in another light I can find a vision of it that’s different enough from Taymor’s.  This will probably take more reflection on my part, but I’m confident that eventually it will all come together.