When I was assigned to direct Titus Andronicus for this Shakespeare class, I knew I was going to have to put a lot of effort into it. Julie Taymor’s film is successful in the fact that it effortlessly combines humor and tragedy and manages to feel timeless. I admire what she’s done with this film and hope that my direction showcases her work while still unique.
The first seen I looked at was the scene where Revenge visits Titus at his house. What I find really interesting about this scene is that for a while in the beginning the audience is not sure whether or not the images Titus sees of Revenge, Rape, and Murder are real or just figments of his imagination. Taymor first presents the three in what she calls a “penny arcade nightmare.” The film has three or four of these “nightmares,” and in the previous ones it’s quite obvious they’re not depicting real events. Because of this, the audience assumes that the “nightmare” featuring Revenge and her cohorts is imaginary as well. By this point in the film Titus’ sanity is already questionable, so it’s not hard to believe Titus is making up the appearance of these people. This “nightmare” converses with him and every time the camera switches to Titus, we see he is alone in his bathroom, talking to no one. There’s steam in the air; the image is fuzzy. The whole atmosphere seems dream-like. Taymor continues this scene by having Titus look out the window of his house and out into the garden. The camera angle switches to below his window and we are now looking up at him as he shouts to the invisible party below. The camera backs further and further away, and yet we do not see Revenge or anyone at all. This just adds the idea that Titus is going insane and seeing people that are not really there. Taymor drew out this opening scene, leaving the audience wondering what is real and what is not.
When the camera angle switches again we see that Titus was not imagining these figures. Standing out in his garden are Tamora, Chiron, and Demetrius disguised as Revenge, Rape, and Murder respectively. Despite this assurance, Titus still comes off as slightly mad. His eyes are wide, he cackles, pretends to attack Rape and Murder, and kisses Revenge. In the eyes of those around him, his actions seem ridiculous. Even when Marcus comes out, you can see in his expression that he’s questioning Titus. Yet during this scene there are a few moments where it seems Titus takes complete control of his mind. The first is when he speaks to Tamora and says, “I pray thee do on them some violent death; they have been violent to me and mine” (Titus.V.ii.108-109). His face turns completely serious. Again this happens at the end of Titus’ conversation with Marcus. There brief moments throw the audience for a loop. By doing this Taymor draws a big question. Is Titus really mad or is he just pretending? There is a small soliloquy Titus has in this scene that Taymor did not include. Titus says, “I knew them all, though they supposed me mad…” (Titus.V.ii.142). This line is explanatory, but by cutting it Taymor lets the audience make their own assumptions about Titus’s sanity.
Taymor sets a strange and frightening atmosphere in the beginning of the scene with the penny arcade nightmare. The strangeness continues with the physical entrance of Revenge and her ministers. Rape and Murder barely speak in this scene, but instead they linger in the background behind their mother. Tamora as Revenge interacts more with Titus, whispering in his ear and appealing to his misery. She is the leader of their little charade, the one orchestrating the whole thing. Her sons are just along for the ride.
The last full scene of the play is where everything finally comes together. It opens with two pies cooling at a windowsill; Carlo Buti’s “Vivere!” can be heard playing in the background. Taymor is very much aware of the comedy within the horrific events of the film, but she never lets it overwhelm the story. Once all the guests arrive, the stage is set with a variety of characters. Besides Titus, Lucius, and the emperor and empress, she included five or six Goths as well as Senate members. This sets up more of an audience for the events that are to come later in the scene. It shows how all the different characters from the movie begin to blur. The once enemies are now allies, the allies are now foes. Many characters in the movie have this dual nature; they are all villains and heroes. Together they are seated at the dinner table, and Taymor gathers them all in for the culmination of the film.
One of the most intense moments in this scene (besides the final revelation) is Livinia’s death. In actuality it sets up the final revelation and through Livinia’s death Titus is able to reveal her real “murderers” and complete the final part of his revenge. The music stops when Livinia enters, looking, as Taymor mentioned, “almost like a bride” complete with a veil (Taymor). She goes to her father who holds her to himself. Taymor used this to emphasize the protectiveness of Titus towards his daughter and his own sorrow for not being able to care for her. Their interaction with each other is loving and knowing; they are very much aware of what will happen next and they have both accepted this. As Titus speaks of Virginius slaying his daughter, the camera cuts behind Titus and Livinia’s faces, so it feels as if we are standing behind them, listening in closely as they talk. Because of this angle, when Titus says, “Die, die, Livinia, and thy shame with thee,” the line seems more gentle and reassuring. Taymor takes a line that could have been seen as harsh, and makes it gentle—a father reassuring his daughter and bestowing upon her a blessing. In the director’s commentary Taymor discussed the actual killing of Livinia. She didn’t want Titus to use a knife or anything else like that because she thought it “would have been a violation” (Taymor). Killing Livinia with his own hand is more intimate, and in a way, less violent.
Livinia’s death is offset by the intense violence that follows. The climax of the films revolves around Titus revealing the true contents of the pies to his guests. When Titus tells Tamora, “Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,” he does it with such exaggeration that it adds a comic layer to the whole situation (Titus.V.iii.60). This was a good choice on Taymor’s part; it reflects the kind of excited madness Titus had built up inside of himself. This was the final reveal for him, a moment of celebration. He knew this was the end and he was going out with a bang. In the following death scenes Taymor cut both Saturninus’ and Lucius’ lines. Instead Taymor relies on rock music, and the character’s actions and facial expressions to say what the actors do not. This part is chaotic and reflects the mayhem seen in the opening scene of the film and that underlies the rest of the movie. After Saturninus’ death, Taymor slows down the film as a transition between the fast-paced death scene and the resolution that follows (the final scene in the play). Lucius closes the movie with his monologue addressed to the Roman people who act as a sort of audience, sitting in the stands of the coliseum. As Taymor said, “he acts with authority and responsibility, but tremendous pain in his eyes” (Taymor).
There were moments in Titus where chaos took over, where things went over the top. This was the essence I was trying to embody in our interpretation of Titus Andronicus. I wanted to take these moments I saw in the movie and expand on that. At the time we watched this movie for class we were discussing parody, pastiche, and camp. I decided I wanted to try to make a parody of the scenes we chose. The first scene we decided to do was the scene where Tamora and her sons come dressed up as Revenge, Rape, and Murder. I knew I wouldn’t have a hard time turning this into a parody. The concept on its own is very comical. What we needed to do was turn the empress and her sons into comedic figures. Despite their cruelty, Chiron and Demetrius have a childishness about them; at one point in the director’s commentary Taymor says, “you get a sense they’re like babies” (Taymor). I wanted to use this image of them. Since we only did the last scenes of the play, I didn’t have to worry about portraying them inappropriately in some of the more violent scenes. So for this scene we turned the sons into the classic bumbling sidekicks. Taymor already established that sidekick feel to them in the film by having them follow their mother around the garden, always looking to her for what to do next. In our play version we made them more obnoxious, more childish. They giggled annoyingly and much too long. They wore silly comedy and tragedy masks and played with toy soldiers. I lowered them from being reckless young criminals, as Taymor portrayed them, and turned them into the ridiculous goons that always accompany the villain in movies.
Although Tamora was the “villain” with her sons as sidekicks, I didn’t make her out to be as disturbing as she was in the movie. Taymor had her in a bizarrely grotesque costume complete with a kitchen knife helmet. Instead we had Tamora wear red glittery wings and a funny Marti Gras mask. The fact that in the movie they visit Titus in disguise, completely sure he won’t recognize them, just amuses me. It’s completely idiotic. I wanted to make their disguises even more idiotic so I cut out all the extravagant costuming and instead put them all in silly, but simple masks. I wanted to emphasize how absurd their disguises were.
There was a moment in this scene in the movie where Tamora leans over and whispers to Titus, then turns his face towards her. I liked this interaction Taymor set up and wanted to include more of that in our play version. When Titus welcomes Tamora into his house, I had him put his arm around her and physically lead her inside. Throughout the scene Tamora walked around Titus, putting her hand on his shoulder or whispering in his ear. Even with her sons she was more affectionate, stroking their heads like they were pets.
In the movie version, Taymor has all four characters outside in Titus’ garden. This I changed, mostly because of set and space obligations. Having them all in Titus’ house worked out well, I think. There’s a strangeness to it, all of them gathering together in his study. I also spaced out the characters on the stage, as opposed to their close location in the movie. This I did for a few reasons. First, I didn’t want all of my characters to be huddle together in a small part of the stage; it would have been awkward looking. Second, Tamora is really the one trying to persuade Titus. The sons throw in a line each, but they mostly hang back. Instead I had Chiron and Demetrius immediately run towards the table as soon as they entered the house. Sitting in the background allowed them to keep their backup roles and by playing with the toy soldiers they upheld that silliness I wanted them to have.
The second scene of our play (the second last in Shakespeare’s version) was truly the most important and the most fun. Taymor again injected a bit of dark humor into her work by having light-hearted music playing as the camera showed us the two meat pies Titus’ baked out of Chiron and Demetrius. She really did an excellent job of infusing these moments without detracting from the whole feel of the work. As a kind of last minute addition, I decided to include that same music as an interlude between the two scenes of our play. It wouldn’t necessarily have the same effect as in the movie, but it’s a very upbeat song that would add a strangely comedic opening for the events that were to come.
Something that wasn’t neither in Shakespeare’s play nor Taymor’s movie was our introduction of the characters. In the other versions, Titus says, “Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread queen; welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome Lucius” and the play goes on from there (Titus.V.iii.26-27). However, I had to make a few changes to the script. First, since we had started our play at the end, most of the audience would have no idea who some characters were. Also, this scene is where the final act of revenge takes place. I was worried that without a little explanation about whom people were, the audience wouldn’t really know what was going on. So I revised Titus’ introduction, adding some asides that allowed him to introduce each guest and provide a little more information about the characters. I don’t really know if it helped the audience at all, but I thought I’d give it a try. Taymor also had both the Goths and Senate members as guests at the dinner. Because of the size of our cast I wasn’t able to do this, though none of them are very important to the scene. If Taymor included them to have a sort of “audience” feel to the scene, well, we didn’t have to worry about that since we already had an audience. Our real audience also stood in place of the audience Taymor had in the final coliseum scene in the movie.
One part of this scene I was worried about was Livinia’s death. I wanted to keep this a parody but I worried about how to go about this part without being crude or disrespectful. Like in the movie I had Titus kill Livinia with his own hand; I found this particularly shocking and thought that even if it didn’t have the parody feel, it was still “out there.” In regards to that, I told the actors to be as dramatic as they wanted with their reactions. Some went pretty far with it, which is good, while others didn’t.
The three final deaths in this scene are really the big bang of the play. Taymor presented a very intense, dramatic ending, but I was going for a more farcical approach. Strangely enough, when we first got this assignment, one of the first ideas I got for directing involved the death scene. Immediately I knew how I wanted to do it. In the movie, Taymor used a variety of different objects as weapons—knives, spoons, candlesticks—but I decided against that. I liked how crazy absurd it was, but it would be too complicated for our stage production. The easiest weapon to use would be a knife with a retractable blade because it’s practical and realistic looking. I knew right away I wanted to use the same weapon for all three deaths, and thought it would be funny if each person came, took the knife out of the person who had just been stabbed, and use it to stab the next person. To add comedic effect I wanted to have all three characters die at the same moment so their deaths would all be more dramatic and in the end Lucius would be the only one standing, alive.
Because we cut out Marcus and Aaron (as well as quite a few other characters) who are in the last scene, we didn’t necessarily need to do the last scene of the play. However, it felt like we needed something to close the scene and since we had the character Lucius, I included his final monologue in the script. It’s a good conclusion and there’s a bit of humor thrown in with the way he talks about leaving Tamora out for birds and beasts to eat. In the movie, Taymor had Lucius—as the new emperor—take a more authoritative, stern tone. However, since Lucius didn’t become emperor in our play I decided to have him speak as if he was addressing each of the deceased. He moved around the stage, stopping by each of the dead and sealing the fate of their bodies. When he came to Tamora I wanted him to get louder, angrier; I even had his character kick her chair and pretend to spit on her.
During a pre-filming rehearsal, Anthony Hopkins made a comment about the “grotesque ridiculousness of us all” (Hopkins). I think this perfectly sums up what I was trying to achieve with our production. Taymor did a great job of incorporating these grotesque and ridiculous moments without overwhelming the integrity of the film. I, however, took these moments and expanded on them, playing up the comical aspects. Sure it probably wasn’t as deep or visionary as Taymor’s production, but it certainly was fun.
