Andronicus: the power of discussion

As I’ve mentioned, I doled out the roles for the table-read of Andronicus, and I’ve begun to have discussions with some of the actors regarding character.

God, I love these talks.

Yesterday, I was talking to Ashley, who’ll be reading Lavinia. Just talking about the character gave me so many new ideas. Too late to implement for this table-read, but stuff I can definitely bring up in our post-read de-brief.

An example:

In the final scene, is Lavinia aware she is going to die? If not, when does that realization come? What is her reaction? Is there a struggle? If she does know, how long has she known? Is she resigned to it, or is she happy for it? Does she give Titus/Tita her permission to do it? WAS IT HER IDEA?

And if was her idea, then why not make her some Grand Guignol angle-of-vengeance in her penultimate scene, doing the throat-slitting of her rapists herself, with blades attached to her stumps???

Like I said, I love these discussions…

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