Synopsis of the play Titus Andronicus
Source http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/titus/summary.html
Characteristics of the film
Some of the key characteristics of the play feature its dark edge, by this I mean you often see death on average 5.2 acts of atrocities per act.
It also features a lot of gruesome scenes in which adds to the so called horror of the play. This can be seen with the cannibalism scene and the actual manner the characters are killed in, their is no real peaceful death in the play.
The play also centers around the tale of revenge. One one person is killed from one side they are revenged by a death on the other until the end of the play when the 2 sons are severed up in a pie.
Our scene analysis
This is the film we shall be performing, here you can see how dark the film is just from the early stages as the "Goths" are captured as they have lost the 10 year war and now are about to be killed in revenge for the fallen sons due to the war, you can see the anguish in the eyes of the characters. The location adds to the effect that the dark presence that is given of from this play as the scene appears to take play inside of a tomb which has very low key lighting and adds to the dark side of the play. The "Goths" are in chains and treated like animals to get across the sense that they are now prisoners and have no rights or privileges as shown when they are dragged about.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!
Lo, as the bark, that hath discharged her fraught,
Returns with precious jading to the bay
From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,
Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To re-salute his country with his tears,
Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.
Thou great defender of this Capitol,
Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!
Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,
Half of the number that King Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!
These that survive let Rome reward with love;
These that I bring unto their latest home,
With burial amongst their ancestors:
Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.
Titus, unkind and careless of thine own,
Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
Make way to lay them by their brethren.
The tomb is opened
There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars!
O sacred receptacle of my joys,
Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
How many sons of mine hast thou in store,
That thou wilt never render to me more!
LUCIUS
Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,
Before this earthy prison of their bones;
That so the shadows be not unappeased,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
I give him you, the noblest that survives,
The eldest son of this distressed queen.
TAMORA
Stay, Roman brethren! Gracious conqueror,
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother's tears in passion for her son:
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me!
Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs and return,
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke,
But must my sons be slaughter'd in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge:
Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld
Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain
Religiously they ask a sacrifice:
To this your son is mark'd, and die he must,
To appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
LUCIUS
Away with him! and make a fire straight;
And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consumed.
Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MUTIUS, with ALARBUS
TAMORA
O cruel, irreligious piety!
Source http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/titus/summary.html
By S. Clarke Hulse's count, Titus Andronicus is a play
with "14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2
or 3, depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity and
1 of cannibalism--an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for
every 97 lines." Reviewer Mike Gene Wallace adds, "This is a great play.
We're talking fourteen dead bodies, kung-fu, sword-fu, spear-fu,
dagger-fu, arrow-fu, pie-fu, animal screams on the soundtrack, heads
roll, hands roll, tongues roll, nine and a half quarts of blood, and a
record-breaking 94 on the vomit meter." Really, there's not much more to
say; that is the essence of the play. Titus Andronicus is a non-stop potboiler catalog of abominations (with the poetry itself counted as a crime by many critics).
Titus Andronicus, Roman general, returns from ten years
of war with only four out of twenty-five sons left. He has captured
Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons, and Aaron the Moor. In
obedience to Roman rituals, he sacrifices her eldest son to his own dead
sons, which earns him Tamora's unending hatred and her promise of
revenge.
Tamora is made empress by the new emperor Saturninus. To get back at Titus, she schemes with her lover Aaron to have Titus's two sons framed for the murder of Bassianus, the emperor's brother. Titus's sons are beheaded. Unappeased, she urges her sons Chiron and Demetrius to rape Titus's daughter Lavinia, after which they cut off her hands and tongue so she cannot give their crime away. Finally, even Titus's last surviving son Lucius is banished from Rome; he subsequently seeks alliance with the enemy Goths in order to attack Rome. Each new misfortune hits the aged, tired Titus with heavier impact. Eventually, he begins to act oddly and everyone assumes that he is crazy.
Tamora tries to capitalize on his seeming madness by pretending to be the figure of Revenge, come to offer him justice if Titus will only convince Lucius to cease attacking Rome. Titus, having feigned his madness all along, tricks her, captures her sons, kills them, and makes pie out of them. He feeds this pie to their mother in the final scene, after which he kills both Tamora and Lavinia, his own daughter. A rash of killings ensue; the only people left alive are Marcus, Lucius, Young Lucius, and Aaron. Lucius has the unrepentant Aaron buried alive, and Tamora's corpse thrown to the beasts. He becomes the new emperor of Rome.
Tamora is made empress by the new emperor Saturninus. To get back at Titus, she schemes with her lover Aaron to have Titus's two sons framed for the murder of Bassianus, the emperor's brother. Titus's sons are beheaded. Unappeased, she urges her sons Chiron and Demetrius to rape Titus's daughter Lavinia, after which they cut off her hands and tongue so she cannot give their crime away. Finally, even Titus's last surviving son Lucius is banished from Rome; he subsequently seeks alliance with the enemy Goths in order to attack Rome. Each new misfortune hits the aged, tired Titus with heavier impact. Eventually, he begins to act oddly and everyone assumes that he is crazy.
Tamora tries to capitalize on his seeming madness by pretending to be the figure of Revenge, come to offer him justice if Titus will only convince Lucius to cease attacking Rome. Titus, having feigned his madness all along, tricks her, captures her sons, kills them, and makes pie out of them. He feeds this pie to their mother in the final scene, after which he kills both Tamora and Lavinia, his own daughter. A rash of killings ensue; the only people left alive are Marcus, Lucius, Young Lucius, and Aaron. Lucius has the unrepentant Aaron buried alive, and Tamora's corpse thrown to the beasts. He becomes the new emperor of Rome.
Characteristics of the film
Some of the key characteristics of the play feature its dark edge, by this I mean you often see death on average 5.2 acts of atrocities per act.
It also features a lot of gruesome scenes in which adds to the so called horror of the play. This can be seen with the cannibalism scene and the actual manner the characters are killed in, their is no real peaceful death in the play.
The play also centers around the tale of revenge. One one person is killed from one side they are revenged by a death on the other until the end of the play when the 2 sons are severed up in a pie.
Our scene analysis
This is the film we shall be performing, here you can see how dark the film is just from the early stages as the "Goths" are captured as they have lost the 10 year war and now are about to be killed in revenge for the fallen sons due to the war, you can see the anguish in the eyes of the characters. The location adds to the effect that the dark presence that is given of from this play as the scene appears to take play inside of a tomb which has very low key lighting and adds to the dark side of the play. The "Goths" are in chains and treated like animals to get across the sense that they are now prisoners and have no rights or privileges as shown when they are dragged about.
Script from our scene
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!
Lo, as the bark, that hath discharged her fraught,
Returns with precious jading to the bay
From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,
Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
To re-salute his country with his tears,
Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.
Thou great defender of this Capitol,
Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!
Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,
Half of the number that King Priam had,
Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!
These that survive let Rome reward with love;
These that I bring unto their latest home,
With burial amongst their ancestors:
Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.
Titus, unkind and careless of thine own,
Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
Make way to lay them by their brethren.
The tomb is opened
There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars!
O sacred receptacle of my joys,
Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
How many sons of mine hast thou in store,
That thou wilt never render to me more!
LUCIUS
Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh,
Before this earthy prison of their bones;
That so the shadows be not unappeased,
Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
I give him you, the noblest that survives,
The eldest son of this distressed queen.
TAMORA
Stay, Roman brethren! Gracious conqueror,
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother's tears in passion for her son:
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me!
Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs and return,
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke,
But must my sons be slaughter'd in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country's cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge:
Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
These are their brethren, whom you Goths beheld
Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain
Religiously they ask a sacrifice:
To this your son is mark'd, and die he must,
To appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
LUCIUS
Away with him! and make a fire straight;
And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consumed.
Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MUTIUS, with ALARBUS
TAMORA
O cruel, irreligious piety!
