Author: thebillshakespeareproject

OK, so you’re a director… and you’re about to mount a production of Titus Andronicus (or it could be a movie version)…

who would be your dream cast?

why?

And, why, gentle reader, why should you do this???

a free Bill / Shakespeare Project tee-shirt to the best/most original/most well-reasoned casting director

That’s why!

Enter by commenting to this blog entry.  Contest entries due before 12 Noon (Pacific) on Thursday, August 27.  I’ll announce the winner in the last podcast of the month (Sunday, August 30).

Good luck!

Yesterday, we talked a little (or a little more than a little) about how Titus (and Titus Andronicus as a whole) fit into the whole Aristotelian definition of tragedy.  We came to the conclusion that Titus’ hamartia (or error in judgment) was his refusal to spare the life of Tamora’s eldest son, Alarbus, when his own son Lucius calls for a sacrifice to calm the spirits of his dead brothers (Titus’ dead sons).

So that’s the “what”… what about the “why”?  Why does he make this decision?  And why does he make the decisions that further his reversal of fortune?
Continue reading “What Makes a Man Start Fires?”

Yesterday, we discussed the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, and how it centered around three main concepts:

• reversal of fortune
• hamartia
• anagnorisis

Let’s start discussing Titus Andronicus with the last one and move backward…
Continue reading “The Tragedy of Titus”

Titus Andronicus is a play of revenge.  It’s a horror show.

But it is also Shakespeare’s first tragedy, a play in which–according to our old friend Aristotle–our tragic hero is subjected to a reversal of fortune (almost always from good to bad).  This reversal is supposed to create fear and pity in the audience, finally resulting in a catharsis, a release of emotions, an emotional cleansing.
Continue reading “It’s a Tragedy”

And I’m not talking Kate Moss. … I’m talking Senecan Tragedy.

Seneca (the Younger) was a Roman playwright (as well as politician and philosopher), who worked in the first century A.D.  Some of his plays reworked stories of earlier Greek writers (like Sophocles), but in his hands, the plays had a greater focus on the terrible deeds that precipitate the tragic hero’s fall.  Sometimes witches and ghosts were employed to bring about actions (or reactions) by the characters, often prompting them to revenge.

So what does a first century Roman playwright have to do with Titus Andronicus?
Continue reading “The Tragic Model of the Day”

OK, so first read-through done… ready to begin the second, deeper reading.
Continue reading “Digging through the bodies”

As Act Five of Titus Andronicus begins, things are coming to a head.  Somewhere on the outskirts of Rome, Lucius is mustering his troops, his army of Goths.  It’s a little unclear why the Goths would join Lucius since Titus was once their “terror” (V.i.10), but the reason seems to center around their former queen: they want to “be avenged on cursed Tamora” (V.i.16).
Continue reading “Act Five: Uh, Just Death (and no pity)”