Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
She’s
Behind
You!
:
the
“embodied”
bodies
in
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus
and
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
Troilus
and
Cressida
“Now
I
see
your
face
before
me,
I
would
launch
a
thousand
ships
to
bring
your
heart
back
to
my
island
as
the
sand
beneath
me
slips,
as
I
burn
up
in
your
presence
and
I
know
now
how
it
feels
to
be
weakened
like
Achilles
with
you
always
at
my
heels”
“ghost”,
indigo
girls.
“Hence,
it
will
be
as
important
to
think
about
how
and
to
what
end
bodies
are
constructed
as
is
it
will
be
to
think
about
how
and
to
what
end
bodies
are
not
constructed
and,
further,
to
ask
after
how
bodies
which
fail
to
materialize
provide
the
necessary
“outside”,
if
not
the
necessary
support,
for
the
bodies
which,
in
materializing
the
norm,
qualify
as
bodies
that
matter”
Judith
Butler,
16
Hamlet:
Suit
the
action
to
the
word,
the
word
to
the
action,
with
this
special
observance,
that
you
o'erstep
not
the
modesty
of
nature:
for
any
thing
so
o'erdone
is
from
the
purpose
of
playing,
whose
end,
both
at
the
first
and
now,
was
and
is,
to
hold
as
'twere
the
mirror
up
to
nature:
to
show
virtue
her
feature,
scorn
her
own
image,
and
the
very
age
and
body
of
the
time
his
form
and
pressure.
Hamlet.3.2.17–24
In
an
essay
entitled
“Looking
Like
a
Child
–or‐
Titus:
The
Comedy”1
,
Carol
Chillington
Rutter
reads
A
Midsummer
Night’s
Dream
and
Titus
Andronicus
as
companion
plays,
a
structure
through
which
to
imagine
Titus:
The
Comedy.
Troilus
and
Cressida
begins
with
a
prologue
that
tells
its
audience
“Look
or
find
fault;
do
as
your
pleasures
are/
now,
good
or
bad,
‘tis
but
the
chance
of
war”
(1.1.30‐1).
This
is
a
play
of
duality,
of
this
versus
that,
although
it’s
never
entirely
clear
cut
how
many
options
there
are.
This
is
a
play
that
finishes
with
the
procreation
of
disease
“Till
then
I’ll
sweat
and
seek
about
for
eases,/
And
at
that
time
bequeath
you
my
diseases”
(5.11.54‐5).
Pandarus,
in
bequeathing
both
the
physical
and
metaphysical
sickness
of
the
play,
ensures
the
longevity
of
the
double
meanings
which
themselves
re‐produce
inside
the
text.
Located
in
this
play
that
has
the
“ravished
Helen”
at
the
centre
of
its
“quarrel”
(1.1.9‐10),
is
the
language
of
duality,
the
language
of
“a
kind
of
self”(3.2.135)
and
a
kind
of
other
self.
We
know
from
this
play
that
to
be
true,
women
1
Rutter,
Carol
Chillington.
“Looking
Like
a
Child
–or‐
Titus:
The
Comedy”.
Shakespeare
and
Comedy:
Shakespeare
Survey
56.
Cambridge
University
Press.
2003.
1
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
must
act
falsely.
The
double‐ness
of
being
is
located
with
the
female
in
this
play.
I
want
to
argue
that
Troilus
and
Cressida
is
the
companion
play
to
Titus
Andronicus,
and
that
this
reading
is
most
readily
available
in
two
recent
productions;
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
2008
stage
production
of
Troilus
and
Cressida,
and
Julie
Taymor’s
film,
Titus,
from
1999.
The
physical
doubling
that
appears
before
us
in
Rome
is
language‐ed
by
the
time
we
get
to
Troy,
Shakespeare
writes
duality
into
Troilus
where
he
puts
it
on
stage
in
Titus.
Both
Declan
Donnellan
and
Julie
Taymor
visually
locate
the
doubles
of
these
plays
in
the
body
of
the
women,
and
emphasise
Susan
Foster’s
theory
that
“the
[female]
body
is
capable
of
being
scripted,
of
being
written”
(Foster,
x.iii).
The
body
in
performance
becomes
the
new
text
of
these
plays,
a
place
to
focus
on
what
Butler
refers
to
as
the
“bodies
that
matter”
(Butler,
16).
Asking
the
question
“what
qualifies
as
bodies
that
matter,
ways
of
living
that
count
as
“life”,
lives
worth
protecting,
lives
worth
saving,
lives
worth
grieving?”
(Butler,
16),
gives
us
a
framework
to
see
how
these
bodies
double
up
in
performance,
how
women
who
are
angels
are
also
whores.
I
want
to
argue
that
the
bodies
of
these
women
in
both
productions
are
not
framed
by
feminism,
or
even
by
“masculinism”,
but
by
a
kind
of
androgyny.
This
is
a
sexuality
“disjoined
from
gender”
(Butler,
19),
a
morphology
that
frames
these
bodies
as
distinctly
post‐sexual,
and
therefore
appropriate
for
reinterpretation,
and
constant
doubling
in
performance.
In
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
production
of
Troilus
and
Cressida
we
have
a
Helen
(Marianne
Oldham)
who
is
also
a
Cassandra,
a
Thersites
(Richard
Cant)
who
is
both
male
and
female,
impersonating
across
genders,
and
a
Cressida
(Lucy
Briggs‐Owen)
who
turns
into
the
whore
Helen,
by
crossing
into
the
enemy’s
camp.
As
Carol
Rutter
points
out
in
her
review
for
Shakespeare
Survey,
“the
way
Donnellan
cut
scenes
together
[in
Troilus
and
Cressida],
creating
narrative
overlaps
and
visual
superimpositions
showed
us
a
world
not
of
opposites
but
of
bizarre
doubles.”
(Rutter,
forthcoming,
2009).
How
do
female
bodies
operate
in
this
production,
both
as
doubles
for
each
other,
and
for
those
in
the
enemy
camp?
From
the
beginning
of
Taymor’s
Titus
we
know
we’re
in
for
a
peep‐show
Rome,
a
city
where
things
happen
behind
half‐closed
doors,
where
little
boys
play
at
soldier
through
paper‐
bag
helmets
and
naked
Romans
slip
and
slide
over
giant
sex‐doll
cornucopias,
in
a
sweet
filled
swimming
pool.
Bodies
are
stacked
up,
the
dead
are
brought
into
the
mausoleum
to
be
buried
at
the
beginning,
and
the
final
scene
has
a
full
amphitheatre
of
spectators
looking
down
at
the
“tragic‐
loading”
(Othello,
5.2.372)
of
a
dinner
table.
But
this
is
also
a
Rome
built
on
idols,
on
replications,
on
“temporal
palimpsest[s]
that
display
[themselves]
everywhere”
(Rutter,
14).
Rome,
like
Troy,
is
a
city
with
a
history
and
in
Taymor’s
film
this
history
is
both
twentieth
century
contemporary,
and
BC‐
ancient.
But
what
of
the
“delegitimated
bodies”
(Butler,
15),
those
bodies
that
have
undergone
change,
and
ruin;
the
raped,
mutilated
and
cannibalistic
bodies
of
Lavinia
and
Tamora
;
those
bodies
that
Butler
wants
us
to
grieve;
those
bodies
that
Jonathan
Bate
is
remembering
when
he
invokes
2
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
the
“singular
beauty”
of
Tamor’s
film
and
says
“after
all
the
cruelty,
the
word
that
rings
in
our
ears
at
the
close
is
“pity””
(Bate,
Titus,
13)?
These
bodies
are
re‐assigned,
redefined,
de‐gendered,
props
for
each
other’s
showboating,
and
they
are
the
bodies
that
leave
an
audience
telling
their
own
“sorrows
to
the
stones”
of
Rome,
of
Troy,
of
the
theatre‐amphitheatre
that
frames
both
of
these
productions,
requiring
the
women’s
bodies
to
be
something
other
than
what
they
are.
My
reason
for
reading
Titus
Andronicus
and
Troilus
and
Cressida
as
companion
plays
is
not
a
similarity
of
story,
but
rather
a
problematic
of
the
body
politic
around
which
these
stories
are
negotiated.
In
Titus,
Lavinia’s
body
is
raped,
mutilated
and
silenced,
and
then
revenged.
In
Troilus,
the
body
at
the
centre
of
the
war
chose
to
be
there.
Helen’s
second
self,
her
Trojan
self,
is
not
a
violent
transitional
body,
it
is
the
body
she
delights
in.
To
highlight
this
delight,
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
2008
production
had
Helen
speak
the
prologue,
whilst
weaving
her
way
through
a
line
of
black‐armour
clad
soldiers
(we
later
realised
that
the
black
armour
was
the
Greek
armour)
,
and
teasing
sword
ends
with
her
mouth
and
fingers,
“prick‐teasingly
..[she]
.smiled
at
the
sway
she
held
over
masculine
desire
and
brutality”
(Smith,
1).
This
was
a
Helen
of
“contaminated
carrion
weight”
(4.1.73),
a
Helen
whose
very
body
was
the
manifestation
of
Trojan
death,
and
wasn’t
she
enjoying
it!
This
Helen,
in
white
fish‐tail,
Grace
Kelly
,
décolleté
gown
giggled
through
her
prologue
aware
that
“In
Troy
there
lies
the
scene”
was
a
false
stage
direction,
the
scene
lay
in
Helen
lying
with
Paris,
in
the
“ticklish
skittish
spirits”
(prologue,
20)
of
a
“ravished”(?)
(prologue,
9)
queen
content
to
leave
the
“two
hours’
traffic
of
our
stage”
(Romeo
and
Juliet,
prologue,
12)
to
mere
“chance”
(prologue,
31).
She
walked
among
the
“fresh
and
yet
unbruisèd
Greeks”
(prologue,
14)
flashing
her
perfect
smile,
the
cat
on
the
catwalk
prowling
for
men.
Perhaps
this
is
the
performative
moment
Cixous
was
referring
to
when
she
noted
that
“the
female
body
on
stage
is
often
subjected
to
an
exposure
both
verbal
and
actual,
where
its
outer
surfaces
–
and
even
its
inner
regions
–
are
rendered
visible”(Cixous,
187).
Helen
was
the
legible,
writable
body
on
stage,
writing
in
the
gaps
of
the
war,
and
fast‐forwarding
her
audience
to
enable
“beginning
in
the
middle”
(prologue,
28);
a
place
that
is
neither
here
nor
there,
a
time
that
is
split
both
ways.
3
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
i
Fig.1 The
stage,
split
between
the
two
camps
was
a
runway
for
war;
traverse,
colour
coded,
establishing
the
audience
as
self‐spectators
looking
across
the
plains
of
Troy,
looking
across
at
the
enemy
camp.
Donnellan
gave
us
from
the
beginning
the
theme
for
this
production,
bodies
and
counter‐bodies;
one
side
and
then
the
other;
overlapping
scenes
(a
Cheek
by
Jowl
trademark)
that
made
Greeks
Trojans
and
Trojans
Greeks.
A
still‐warm
bed
was
vacated
by
Paris
and
Helen,
and
filled
by
Troilus
and
Cressida.
This
was
a
world
in
which
Paris
was
Menelaus
(both
played
by
Oliver
Coleman),
a
world
in
which
no
fighting
took
place
and
soldiers
had
to
play
at
war.
This
was
a
production
that
would
have
had
Cixous
outraged;
“the
female
subject
is
reduced
to
its
corporeal
parameters;
its
very
capacities
for
language,
gesture,
and
self‐extension
are
subordinated
in
a
culturally
and
theatrically
imposed
materiality,
and
the
body
becomes
an
object
for
fetishistic
approach”(
Cixous,
187).
Precisely!
However,
the
very
“corporeal
parameters”
to
which
Cixous
refers
were
not
objectified
by
the
men
in
this
production,
this
was
a
kind
of
self‐objectification,
Helen
cast
herself
as
the
fetishised
object
that
this
war
was
about.
This
was
a
Helen
who
could
love
Troilus,
fuck
Paris
and
“unarm”
(3.1.140)
Hector
all
in
one
day.
In
3.1
Donnellan
directed
a
photo‐shoot
for
the
cover
of
Harper’s
Bizarre
to
explain
Paris’s
absence
from
the
field
of
war
–
“I
would
fain
have
armed
today,
but
my
Nell/
would
not
have
it
so”
(3.1.127‐8).
Accompanied
by
a
Piaf‐inspired
ballad
“Love,
love,
nothing
but
love”
(3.1.105)
(sung
by
a
panama‐hatted,
sweating
Pandarus,
David
Collings),
Helen,
still
in
white
dress
with
long
gloves,
and
Paris,
first
in
black‐tie
and
then
in
his
armour,
posed
for
shot
after
shot.
This
was
Helen’s
moment
of
mass
exposure,
she
was
the
face
that
launched
a
thousand
ships,
and
on
the
cover
of
every
4
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
magazine.
Just
as
Lavinia’s
body
is
cross‐referenced
with
Monroe’s
in
Taymor’s
Titus,
Helen
was
Edith
Piaf,
Grace
Kelly,
but
also,
tellingly,
Eva
Peron.
This
scene
ended
with
Helen
in
tears
as
she
broke
down
singing
along
with
Pandarus;
suddenly
this
Helen
was
no
longer
enjoying
her
war.
As
Smith
described,
this
was
“The
pairing
of
beauty
and
the
beast”
(Smith,
1),
although
in
this
production
sorting
the
beast
from
the
beauty
wasn’t
always
easy.
ii
Fig.2 Troilus
and
Cressida
is
a
play
that
requires
the
theatre
to
explore
doubling;
Helen
is
both
“whore”
and
“queen”,
Calchas
switches
from
one
side
to
the
other,
Patroclus
fights
as
Achilles,
Nestor
says
he’ll
pretend
not
to
be
old
in
order
to
fight
Hector,
and
from
the
naive
Cressida,
to
the
whore
Helen,
to
the
slave
Thersites
we
see
the
shift
that
the
body
politic
takes
through
this
play.
The
problem
that
this
play,
and
particularly
this
production,
establishes
through
doubling
is
what
happens
when
the
female
body
chooses
to
transgress,
when
the
body‐politic
performs
the
un‐
political,
and
when
the
female
body
violates
the
sexual
norm.
Enter
Thersites.
Cheek
by
Jowl
is
no
stranger
to
cross‐dressing
theatre,
and
to
reassigning
gender
identities
onstage,
but
Thersites
(Richard
Cant)
redefined
the
redefinition,
switching
between
Lily
Savage
cleaning
lady
complete
with
marigolds
and
dusting‐spray,
and
a
cabaret
inspired
performance
of
“Love,
love,
nothing
but
love”,
in
full
white
Helen‐costume.
Carol
Rutter
describes
Thersites
as
the
“production’s
most
outrageous
–
and
heartbreaking
–
manifestation
of
Shakespeare’s
play
as
eulogy
for
those
trapped
in
the
middle”
(Rutter,
forthcoming).
The
S/He
that
was
neither
military
nor
entirely
civilian,
a
wisecracking,
Liverpudlian
commentator
and
a
scorned
lover
full
of
“coruscating
bile”
(Rutter,
forthcoming).
In
5.1/5.2,
the
Greeks
entertain
the
Trojans,
and
Achilles
brings
on
Thersites
(first
as
‘herself’
in
black
5
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
dress
and
red
wig)
and
secondly
as
Helen,
to
this
“warrior
caste’s
fatal
contradictions
on
stunning
display”
(Rutter,
ibid).
Thersites
is
Helen.
Helen
is
a
S/He.
The
body
of
this
play
is
located
somewhere
on
the
wasteland
in
between
the
Greek
Camp,
and
Troy,
in
between
the
female
and
the
male.
This
makes
a
kind
sense
of
Cressida’s
full
conversion
to
the
Greek
camp‐she
herself
becomes
a
kind
of
Helen,
“abandoning”
her
city
for
the
lascivious
clutches
of
Diomedes.
To
close
5.1,
Thersites
awkwardly
put
out
his
hand
and
invited
Hector
to
dance.
And
one
by
one,
all
the
Greeks
took
a
Trojan
partner,
black
on
white,
cuckold
on
adulterer,
he
on
s/he.
And
cut
to
the
fighting
of
tomorrow
where
Thersites,
still
in
the
dress,
would
compère
the
battle
down
the
same
microphone
into
which
s/he
sang
of
“love”,
the
very
same
into
which
s/he
spoke
“nothing
but
lechery”
(5.1.88).
But
was
this
Thersites,
or
was
this
Helen
in
the
middle
of
her
army,
calling
the
shots
for
her
war?
Fig.3iii
Whatever
happens
to
the
women
in
this
play?
For
Cheek
By
Jowl,
they’re
all
one
and
the
same.
Helen
is
also
Cassandra
(the
whore
of
this
production
was
also
the
woman
who
could
see
the
6
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
future),
Cressida
is
also
Andromache
and
Helen.
When
Thersistes
exited
the
stage
at
the
end
of
5.1
as
Helen,
Cressida
entered
in
5.2
as
Helen,
ready
to
play
the
whore
to
Diomedes.
Thersites
is
all
the
women;
divided‐self,
dis‐located,
re‐located,
the
woman’s
part
in
a
man’s
world,
keeping
the
camp
clean.
Thersites
choreographed
the
Greek
camp,
moving
chairs,
establishing
boundaries,
breaking
and
creating
uncomfortable
silences
accompanied
by
the
“squirt,
squirt”
of
her
cleaning
bottle.
iv
Fig.4 Stanton
Garner
offers
a
way
of
thinking
about
the
female
body
and
its
location:
“in
both
traditional
and
feminist
drama,
then,
the
theatre
of
women’s
bodies
involves
the
politics
of
space,
as
it
is
authored
by
and
devolves
back
into
the
embodied
subject
in
contact
with
its
environment.”
(Garner,
188).
The
difficulty
these
women
have
is
locating
the
environment,
and
which
space
precisely
to
get
political
about.
For
Lavinia,
that
“space”
is
the
body,
her
body,
and
the
spaces
that
are
made
where
parts
of
her
body
once
were.
Helen,
and
indeed
Cressida
live
in
disembowelled
spaces
in
Troilus
and
Cressida.
Troy
is
torn
apart
by
the
death
of
Hector,
the
Greek
camp
(and
indeed
the
Grecian
war
effort)
is
stomach‐less
without
Achilles.
These
women
become
shape‐shifters
in
order
to
survive.
The
last
time
we
see
a
woman
on
stage
before
the
curtain
call
it
is
Cressida,
running
from
either
end
of
the
traverse,
caught
in
the
hinterlands
between
Greek
and
Trojan,
between
Self
and
not‐self,
caught
in
this
“kind
of
self”(3.2.135)
that
cannot
be
located.
Like
Tamora
however,
Thersites
is
the
one
who
watches,
who
entertains,
who
dresses
provocatively,
and
who
moves
in
for
the
kill.
Jennifer
Drouin
offers
us
a
reason
for
this
in
her
essay
7
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
“cross‐Dressing,
Drag,
and
Passing”:
“Drag
is
self‐referential
and
sometimes
parodic;
therein
lies
its
potential
to
subvert,
because
it
does
not
appear
to
attack
hegemonies
directly
but
rather
its
own
performer”(Drouin,
26).
She
goes
on
to
argue
that
performative
speech
is
always
“words
that
do
things”
(Drouin,
26)
and
that
therefore
performance
is
“transformance”.
Returning
to
Butler,
we
understand
that
all
authoritative
voice
in
the
theatre
has
its
own
historicity,
and
agency.
The
most
subversive
act
that
the
drag‐queen
can
perform,
therefore,
is
not
the
taking
off
of
clothes‐the
revealing
of
the
cross‐gendering,
but
silence.
The
refusal
to
speak
is
the
refusal
to
offer
the
authority
of
speech.
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
Thersites
railed
and
sang,
but
s/he
also
watched,
listened
and
took
note2.
Was
this
drag‐queen
a
parody?
Most
certainly.
But
as
this
parody
she
was
watched
more
closely,
and
surrounded
by
more
men
onstage
than
the
subject
of
her
parody
ever
was.
Thersites
was
a
better
Helen
than
Helen
could
ever
be.
As
Butler
puts
it
“”these
so‐called
men
could
do
femininity
much
better
than
I
ever
could,
ever
wanted
to,
ever
would”
(Butler,
213,
2004).
Thersites
occupied
the
space
between
the
“inner
and
outer
psychic”
(Butler,
174,
1990),
pulling
both
Helen
the
“whore”
(Troilus,
2.3.65),
and
Lavinia
the
“shame[d]”
(Titus,
5.3.40)
into
that
un‐occupiable
space
that
became
the
body
embodied.
Thersites
was
the
problem‐child
of
this
production,
the
very
location
of
the
divided‐self;
echoing
Helen
in
the
prologue,
with
“all
the
argument
is
a
whore
and
a
cuckold”
(2.3.65),
the
war
of
“patchery”
and
“juggling”
(2.3.64).
In
Cheek
by
Jowl’s
production,
Thersites
stayed
onstage
for
the
beginning
of
Act2.2,
watching
the
beginning
of
the
discussion
of
the
“mad
idolatry”
(2.2.55)
of
Helen.
The
body
discussed
is
not
present,
as
is
so
often
the
case
with
Helen,
and
another
body
stands
in
lieu.
The
second
half
of
Garner’s
observation
is
this:
“The
female
body
aside
from
being
the
locus
for
infliction,
objectification,
constraint
and
pain
is
also
“a
vehicle
for
reclaiming
lived
embodiedness
in
creative
contact
with
its
environment”
(ibid).
The
woman’s
body
then
becomes
the
missing
link;
the
half‐and‐half,
the
Thersites.
From
a
s/he
who
rails
and
learns
the
silent
act
of
looking
to
a
body
silenced
into
railing,
that
of
the
raped
and
muted
Lavinia.
“Speak,
gentle
niece,
what
stern
ungentle
hands/
Have
lopp'd
and
hew'd
and
made
thy
body
bare/
Of
her
two
branches...?
Why
dost
not
speak
to
me?”
(2.4.16‐18).
Marcus
Andronicus
looks
at
the
trimmed
body
of
his
niece
and
asks
a
question
that
she
can
no
longer
answer.
Perhaps,
tellingly,
what
is
worse
than
the
offstage
rape
of
Lavinia,
is
the
visual
effect
of
her
violent
silence
onscreen.
2
Thersites
stood
just
offstage,
watching
the
tryst
between
Diomedes
and
Cressida;
and
watched
Troilus
watching
them.
8
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
v
Fig.5 In
Taymor’s
Titus
we
see
Marcus
Andronicus
(Colm
Feore)
staring
out
between
the
branches
of
the
“wilderness”,
and
catching
sight
of
what
could
easily
be
a
wood‐nymph,
swaying,
arms
outstretched,
standing
on
a
tree
stump.
As
he
walks
towards
this
vision,
we
realise
it
is
the
silenced,
ravished
body
of
Lavinia
staring
wide
eyed
into
the
camera,
and
using
her
prosthetic
branch‐hands
to
hide
her
body
from
her
uncle’s
sight.
Lavinia
(Laura
Fraser)
is
in
what
Taymor
describes
as
“a
swamp
that
is
like
a
burnt‐out
forest
fire”
(Taymor,
DVD
commentary),
and
Marcus
steps
out
of
the
fertile
green
of
the
woods
into
this
ravaged
landscape.
As
Marcus
walks
towards
Lavinia
the
camera‐
speed
is
slowed,
so
that
Lavinia’s
“dancing”
and
Marcus’s
reaction
are
suspended
out
of
time,
into
double
time.
This
film
operates
both
its
physical
and
metaphysical
double‐ness
at
this
moment.
Taymor
also
cuts
Marcus’s
speech3
about
Lavinia,
literally
truncating
the
text
to
emulate
the
truncated
body.
The
woman
on
the
pedestal
becomes
the
metaphor
for
violated
bodies
in
this
film.
The
missing
language
is
replaced
with
the
eerie
flute
music
of
Goldenthal’s
score
which
fills
the
silence
of
the
muted
scream;
when
Lavinia
opens
her
mouth,
all
that
comes
out
is
a
river
of
blood.
Taymor
points
us
towards
Degas’
ballerinas
(Taymor,
DVD
commentary),
but
there
is
also
something
pre‐emptive
in
the
dancing
Lavinia
in
her
white
dress
of
the
later
Monroe‐reference
that
we
get
in
the
penny‐arcade
nightmare
scenes.
Marcus
guides
the
collapsing
Lavinia
into
his
arms
and
looks
into
her
face
before
carrying
her
away
across
the
swamp
promising
to
her
that
the
Andronichi
clan
will
“mourn
with
thee”
(2.4.56).
Fig.6vi
3
In
the
1955
production,
Peter
Brook
also
cut
Marcus’s
speech.
Aebischer
explains
this
as
a
way
of
stressing
“the
playtext’s
exploration
of
the
violence
that
hides
behind
the
fetishising
gaze”
(Aebischer,
48)
through
silence,
by
not
cataloguing
the
destruction
of
the
body.
9
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
njkfnzfn
vii
Fig.7 Lisa
Dickson
tells
us
that
“Titus
Andronichus
has
long
been
a
site
of
conceptual
struggle
to
make
the
mutilated
body
that
is
its
obsessive
object
something
more
than
“meaningless”
spectacle”.
(Dickson,1).
For
Julie
Taymor
the
only
way
to
do
this
was
to
“unsettle
the
audience
with
a
styalised
version
of
violence”
(Taymor,
DVD
commentary).
However,
my
sense
of
double‐ness
in
this
film,
and
in
this
play,
dictates
that
in
order
to
read
this
body
(that
of
the
mutilated
Lavinia)
we
must
read
the
bodies
that
came
before,
and
see
how
this
body
is
re‐enacted
and
re‐venged
subsequently.
If
“violence...is
implicated
in
the
very
process
of
subject
formation”
(Dickson,
3)
then
we
must
return
to
the
forming
of
the
subject
to
understand
how
to
read
the
body
that
is
now
written.
Titus
Andronicus
is
not
a
play
where
violence
is
forgotten,
it
is
a
play
where
violence
is
remembered,
re‐
enacted
and
rewritten,
literally,
by
the
violated
body
of
Lavinia.
And
out
of
this
rewriting
of
the
body,
out
of
the
“battlefield
of
flesh”
(Dickson,
4),
bodies
are
reconstructed.
10
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
viii
Fig.8 If
Lavinia’s
is
a
body
that
requires
first
underwriting,
and
secondly
overwriting,
then
the
“subject
formation”
(ibid)
of
this
body
happens
in
chapter
four
(1.1.156)
of
Taymor’s
movie,
“Enter
Lavinia”,
into
the
Andronichi
tomb.
From
the
moment
she
enters
shot,
Lavinia
is
already
walking
with
the
dead.
Ten
movie
minutes
later
Lavinia,
still
dressed
in
her
black
mourning
dress
with
black
gloves,
is
given
as
Saturninus’s
(
Alan
Cumming)
bride
in
front
of
the
Senate.
This
Lavinia
kisses
the
outstretched
hand
of
Saturninus
and
looks
up
into
the
camera.
Her
eyes,
instead
of
her
mouth,
telling
us
that
this
is
not
going
to
work.
These
are
the
eyes
we
see
in
a
close
up
shot
in
the
swamp
telling
the
same
story.
This
is
not
going
to
work.
There
is
no
tongue
with
which
to
speak.
Enter
Tamora,
Queen
of
the
Goths
(Jessica
Lange).
Tamora
is
two
Lavinias,
twice
her
age,
flanked
by
her
two
sons
(as
opposed
to
Lavinia’s
one
father
who
has
just
betrayed
her
love),
and
has
twice
her
pulling
power.
This
then
is:
enter
The
Body
that
will
replace
the
potential
Empress,
disavow
it,
and
order
its
mutilation.
Enter
also
a
body
that
has
no
daughters.
Tamora
is
dressed
in
a
cape
of
wild‐
animal
skins,
and
her
hair
is
braided
into
golden
cornrows.
This
is
a
Queen,
not
a
woman
prepared
to
die.
11
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Fig.9ix
What
follows
is
fascinating:
Lavinia
stands
beside
the
throne.
Tamora,
Chiron
(Jonathan
Rhys
Meyers),
Demetrius
(Matthew
Rhys)
and
Aaron
(Harry
Lennix)
kneel
before
the
Emperor.
Saturninus
removes
Tamora’s
cape
to
reveal
a
fitted
golden
bodice
of
armour,
to
which
he
responds
“A
goodly
lady,
trust
me,
of
the
hue/
That
I
would
choose
were
I
to
choose
anew”
(1.1.261‐2),
and
smiling
lasciviously
he
turns
to
Lavinia
and
asks
“you
are
not
displeased
with
this?”
(1.1.270).
It
is
already
clear
who
the
body
double
in
the
bed
will
be.
Lavinia
kissing
Saturninus’s
ring
is
echoed
when
Saturninus
cups
the
face
of
Tamora
and
looks
passionately
into
it,
before
the
camera
pans
away
again
to
Lavinia,
watching
in
the
background.
x
Fig.10 xi
Fig.11 A
Lavinia,
or
a
Tamora?
A
Cressida,
or
a
Helen?
Saturninus
pronounces
the
prisoners
free
before
giving
Lavinia
back
to
Titus
(Anthony
Hopkins)
and
turning
to
face
Tamora.
The
choice
of
wife
is
made
for
Saturninus,
but
you
can’t
help
thinking
that
sexually
at
least,
he
got
the
better
deal.
Tamora,
however,
remains
silent.
She
only
speaks
at
1.1.326
after
Lavinia
has
run
out
on
the
12
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
marriage,
and
promises
to
Saturninus
that
she
will
be
“handmaid
to
[his]
desires”,
a
“loving
nurse”,
and
a
“mother
to
his
youth”
(1.1.328‐9).
This
is
a
woman
of
many
parts.
At
this
point
in
the
film,
and
the
play,
Tamora
assumes
the
role
of
Lavinia,
the
role
of
Empress
of
Rome.
This
is
the
underwriting
of
the
violence
enacted
on
Lavinia’s
body.
The
violence
can
happen
precisely
because
there
is
a
body
double.
Through
Tamora,
Lavinia
will
remain
intact.
This
first
Senate
scene
is
a
trope
repeated
throughout
the
film,
until
the
final
gathering
around
the
banquet
table
in
5.3.
Taymor
makes
2.3,
the
second
of
these
political
gatherings.
Lavinia
and
Bassianus
(James
Frain)
interrupt
a
trysting
Tamora
and
Aaron
in
a
clearing
of
the
woods.
Elsewhere
in
these
same
woods
Saturninus,
Titus,
and
his
sons
are
hunting
the
hind.
Tamora
is
dressed
in
red
hunting
garb
(the
same
red
that
will
appear
on
Lavinia
and
Lucius
in
4.1),
cropped
trousers,
knee‐high
boots
and
a
bodice
underneath
a
full‐length
riding
coat.
Her
short
blonde
hair
is
loose,
and
as
Taymor
points
out
she
is
somewhat
“androgynous,
both
male
and
female...reminding
us
of
Visconti’s
The
Damned”
(Taymor,
DVD
commentary).
By
contrast
Lavinia
is
all
pinned
in,
black
coat
buttoned,
dark
hair
under
a
black
pill‐box
hat,
and
she
walks
into
the
scene
mocking
Tamora,
and
looking
at
the
body
that
has
become
the
Empress
and
taken
her
place.
As
Bassianus
and
Lavinia
mock
Tamora4
we
see
Tamora’s
face
set,
and
her
half‐exposed
body
becomes
the
foreshadowing
of
what
will
happen
to
Lavinia.
Enter
Chiron
and
Demetrius.
“Exit”
Bassianus5.
Lavinia
is
now
alone
facing
her
double,
and
Demetrius
(dressed
in
a
tiger‐skin
patterned
coat)
and
Chiron
bait
her.
The
camera
cuts
back
and
forth
between
the
bodies
on
screen,
creating
dizzying
doubles,
and
visually
realising
the
eye
for
an
eye,
the
daughter
for
a
sacrificed
son
who
Tamora
wants
to
revenge.
When
Lavinia
realises
her
fate
and
falls
to
her
knees
before
Tamora
to
beg
to
be
murdered
as
opposed
to
violated,
Tamora
takes
Lavinia’s
face
in
her
hand
and
strokes
her
cheek,
physically
marking
her
as
the
body,
but
also
taking
us
back
to
Saturninus
holding
Tamora’s
face
in
his
hands,
looking
at
the
woman
who
was
not
Lavinia.
Lavinia
begs
“Tis
present
death
I
beg,
and
one
thing
more/
That
womanhood
denies
my
tongue
to
tell”
(2.3.173‐4).
The
reference
to
de‐tonguing
is
not
lost
as
Lavinia
stares
up
into
the
face
of
Tamora,
and
the
camera
cuts
to
Chiron
and
Demetrius
who
have
just
worked
out
how
to
shut
this
woman
up.
The
boys,
who
have
learned
their
mother’s
“wrath”
(2.3.143)
promise
to
kill
Lavinia,
to
ensure
that
this
“wasp”
does
not
“outlive”
(2.3.132)
her
ordeal
and
tell
the
tale.
Tamora
orders
the
rape
and
defilement
of
Lavinia,
telling
her
boys
to
“this
trull
deflower”
(2.3.191),
and
in
doing
so
she
revenges
the
death
of
her
son
Alarbus.
What
this
scene
does
is
locate
Tamora
as
the
non‐female,
visually
and
linguistically
placing
her
in
the
same
wilderness
which
Thersites
occupies.
4
Lavinia
calls
Tamora
“Semiramis”
the
lustful
goddess
for
“no
name
fits
thy
mature
buy
thy
own”2.3.118‐9
Bassianus
is
murdered
on‐screen.
And
his
body
remains
on
the
ground
until
Chiron
and
Demetrius
drag
it
away.
5
13
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
Now
to
fast
forward
to
the
overwriting
of
Lavinia’s
body,
that
is
the
revelation
scene
(
4,1,
and
in
Taymor’s
film
“
Lavinia’s
Sorrows
Printed
Plain”).
The
young
boy
Lucius
(Osheen
Jones)
runs
through
the
orchards
with
a
book‐bundle
on
his
back,
followed
by
his
Aunt
Lavinia.
We
later
discover
that
in
this
bundle
is
a
copy
of
Ovid’s
Metamorphosis,
and
Lavinia
needs
it
to
tell
her
story,
through
the
story
of
Philomel.
At
first
young
Lucius
likens
his
Aunt
to
Hecuba,
“Ran
mad
for
sorrow”
(4.1.21),
and
in
Taymor’s
film
Lavinia
beseeches
her
nephew
who
stands
between
the
elder
Andronichi,
frightened
of
his
crazed
Aunt,
and
eventually
falls
to
her
knees
on
the
floor
and
frantically
searches
through
the
pages
of
Metamorphosis.
With
the
wooden
hands
that
the
young
Lucius
gave
her,
Lavinia
points
out
her
story,
as
Titus
reads
over
her
shoulder
“
O,
had
we
never,
never
hunted
there!
/
Patterned
by
that
poet
here
describes,
/
By
nature
made
for
murders
and
for
rapes”
(4.1.55‐7)
xii
Fig.12 At
this
point,
Marcus
gives
Lavinia
the
stage‐direction;
“Write
thou,
good
niece”
(4.1.72)
on
the
“sandy
plot”
(4.1.68).
He
shows
his
niece
how
to
hold
a
staff
in
the
mouth
and
guide
the
end
of
it
through
the
sand
to
make
letters.
However,
when
he
gives
the
staff
to
Lavinia
she
relives
the
rape‐
seeing
before
her
the
swollen
end
of
a
penis,
and
as
she
goes
to
put
it
in
her
mouth
what
we
see
for
the
first
time
is
the
empty
hollowness
where
her
tongue
once
was.
At
that
moment,
with
her
mouth
open
over
the
end
of
the
staff,
we
remember
the
Lavinia
vomiting
blood
on
the
tree
stump,
we
see
the
staff
as
the
physicalisation
of
rape,
but
also
as
the
wood
of
her
hands,
the
burnt‐out
trees,
the
dead
wood
which
she
now
is,
and
we
see
her
decide
not
to
ingest
the
violation
again,
but
instead
to
lay
the
staff
against
her
shoulder
and
begin
furiously
to
write.
As
the
staff
moves
over
the
sand
we
are
given
another
Penny
Arcade
nightmare/flashback.
Lavinia,
Monroe‐like6,
in
a
blue
wash
stands
on
a
pedestal
trying
to
keep
down
her
billowing
white
skirts
with
doe‐hoof‐hands,
whilst
Chiron
and
6
Aebischer
explains
that
“disturbingly,
the
association
with
Monroe
codes
Lavinia
both
as
a
victim
of
male
exploitation,
and
as
“available”
and
“asking
for
it”
in
the
ambiguous
sense
in
which
“ravish”
can
refer
both
to
the
male
act
of
rape
and
the
female
condition
of
being
“ravishing””.
Shakespeare’s
Violated
bodies,
47.
14
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
Demetrius‐sometime
men
and
sometime
tigers‐jump
at
her,
like
circus
animals
through
hoops
of
fire.
The
scratches
on
the
sand
become
the
backdrop
to
the
nightmare,
and
draw
in
the
shape
of
the
branches.
Lavinia
draws
her
own
“hands”
into
the
nightmare.
This
crazed‐punk‐rock
fantasy
music
video
plays
out
the
memory
of
the
rape,
as
simultaneously
Lavinia
writes
Chiron
and
Demetrius
into
the
sand.
Just
as
her
body
(and
the
rape)
are
legible,
so
their
names
become
so
too.
And
written
on
the
ground,
on
Lavinia’s
body,
and
into
the
fantasy
is
the
“wilderness
of
tigers”
(3.1.53)
that
Rome
is
crippled
by.
These
perhaps
are
the
very
tigers
which
Troilus
says
men
vow
to
“tame”
for
proof
of
the
“monstruosity
in
love‐
that
the
will
is
infinite
and
the
execution
confined”
(3.2.73‐5).
xiii
Fig.13 After
Lavinia
has
finished
writing
there
is
a
moment
of
stillness
in
Taymor’s
film;
Marcus
looks
over
to
the
ground,
Titus
puts
his
arm
out
for
his
daughter,
Lavinia
rests
on
the
staff,
and
the
young
Lucius
looks
to
his
Aunt.
And
then
you
see
it;
the
double;
the
young
Lucius
in
his
red
t‐shirt
looking
up
at
his
Aunt
in
her
blood‐red
dress,
with
the
staff
running
diagonally
cross‐screen
from
Lavinia,
through
Titus,
to
Lucius.
This
is
one
family.
Lucius
is
both
the
biological
and
visual
doubling
of
Lavinia,
only
he’s
an
improved
model;
he
is
a
boy,
and
he
has
his
hands.
And
in
the
centre
of
the
shot
is
the
abandoned
copy
of
Ovid.
Every
woman‐double
is
right
in
the
middle
of
the
screen
arced
over
by
Lavinia,
who
has
finally
redeemed
them
all
by
conveying
the
nature
of
the
crime
committed
against
the
female
body‐politic.
15
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Student
ID:
0503731
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
xiv
Fig.14 The
final
doubling
that
I
want
to
look
at
in
this
film
comes
in
the
final
scene.
This
is
Tamora
as
Tamora,
the
costume
of
Revenge
replaced
with
the
same
golden
cornrows
and
metallic
costume
as
the
Senate
scene.
She
is
the
very
double
of
her
own
self
in
reverse.
Tamora
enters
first,
followed
by
the
Senate
and
the
Andronichi
who
sit
opposite
each
other
along
the
table,
split
down
the
middle
by
black
and
white
costumes.
Anthony
Hopkins
enters
shot
in
a
white
chef’s
outfit
(with
perhaps
a
nod
towards
Hannibal
Lector),
ready
to
serve
Tamora
her
own
children
(helpfully,
two
pies
for
the
price
of
one),
to
the
dulcet
tones
of
Carlo
Buti
singing
“Vivere”.
Titus
brings
on
the
pies,
with
the
aid
of
his
mini‐me‐accomplice,
young
Lucius,
and
once
again
Tamora
is
flanked
by
her
two
sons.
The
guests
tuck‐in
to
boy‐pie.
Enter
Lavinia,
dressed
as
she
was
in
the
very
first
scene,
complete
with
veil,
except
now
all
in
white7,
she
is
the
sacrificial
lamb
to
the
slaughter,
the
double
of
Chiron
and
Demetrius
who
have
already
been
sacrificed,
kosher‐like,
for
their
violation
of
Lavinia.
Lavinia
looks
at
her
father,
and
Titus
tells
the
story
of
Virginius,
the
Emperor
who
slew
his
daughter
because
she
was
“enforced,
stained,
and
deflowered”
(95.3.38).
Lavinia
removes
her
veil,
revealing
herself,
and
smiles
as
she
lays
her
head
against
her
father’s
cheek.
At
this
precise
moment
in
the
film
Lavinia
is
perfect.
We
cannot
see
any
of
her
mutilated
body,
nor
can
we
see
Titus’s
stump
which
he
gave
as
body‐swap
for
the
heads
of
his
sons.
This
is
a
body‐perfect
family
unit,
and
Lavinia
is
reinstated.
The
camera
cuts
between
Lavinia’s
face
and
Tamora’s
face
until
Titus
breaks
Lavinia’s
neck
“intimately,
lovingly”
(Taymor,
DVD
commentary),
with
no
physical
manifestation
of
violence,
except
that
she
no
longer
breathes.
Her
life
was
violent,
her
death
was
gentle.
And
then
comes
the
final
moment
of
body
cross‐referencing
in
this
film;
the
death
of
Tamora.
Titus
reveals
the
ingredients
of
the
pie,
7
At
this
point,
Lavinia
enters
with
an
entirely
white
outfit,
except
the
veil,
which
is
black,
exactly
as
in
the
first
scene
in
the
mausoleum.
16
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
picks
up
the
carving
knife
and
stabs
Tamora
in
the
throat.
And
Tamora,
just
as
Lavinia
did,
opens
her
mouth
to
scream
and
all
that
comes
out
is
a
river
of
blood.
xv
Fig
15‐16 xvi
Fig.17 17
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
If
Declan
Donnellan’s
Helen
is
the
body
politic
at
the
centre
of
the
Trojan
War,
then
Taymor’s
Lavinia
is
that
same
body
after
the
war
is
over.
Lavinia’s
fate
is
symbiotic
with
the
collapse
of
Rome8.
Where
do
we
look
beyond
the
body?
And
what
body
hides
behind
the
raped
and
savaged
mute
out
in
the
wilderness?
Behind
the
body
of
Lavinia,
is
the
body
of
Tamora,
just
as
Thersites
is
behind
Helen.
I
want
to
finish
by
thinking
about
the
non‐female
bodies
that
I
believe
both
of
these
productions
reference,
albeit
unintentionally.
Returning
to
Pascale
Aebischer’s
theory
that
creating
a
Lavinia
who
is
also
Marilyn
Monroe,
mimics
a
sexualised
woman
who
is
“asking
for
it”
(Aebischer,
47),
we
can
understand
how
raping
the
woman
turns
her
post‐sexual
(turns
her
into
Tamora).
In
Boys
Don’t
Cry
(Kimberly
Peirce,1999),
The
Accused(Jonathan
Kaplan,
1988),
and
I
Spit
on
your
Grave
(Meir
Zarchi,
1978),
women
are
raped,
de‐womaned,
redefined,
redefining,
and
end
up
parodies,
doubles
of
their
pre‐violated
selves.
Leaving
her
“asking
for
it”
self
behind,
with
the
mini‐skirt
and
plunging
neckline,
Jodie
Foster
gets
suited
and
booted
for
court
in
The
Accused,
and
significantly
cuts
off
all
her
hair.
Hilary
Swank
as
Brendon
Teena
in
Boys
Don’t
Cry
begins
the
film
with
no
hair,
she
begins
as
a
he,
and
one
can’t
help
believing
if
s/he’d
just
admit
the
truth,
things
might
turn
out
differently.
And
Jennifer,
played
by
Camille
Keaton
in
I
Spit
on
your
Grave
is
un‐written
by
her
rape
because
the
book
she
is
writing
is
also
destroyed.
There
is
a
before
and
after.
We
need
the
post‐
victims,
the
Tamora
and
the
Thersites
who
will
continue
to
rail,
else
a
woman
defiled
“hath
no
tongue
to
call”
(2.4.7).
But
we
also
need
Helen,
the
woman
who
is
up
for
it,
the
woman
who
makes
sense
of
the
bar‐pinball
machine‐gang
rape
scene
that
has
become
a
trope
of
violent
sex
cinema9.
Ultimately,
however,
what
both
of
these
plays
and
these
productions
do
is
make
us
privy
to
the
transitions
of
the
woman,
and
couch
Us
as
responsible.
We
watch
a
rape
being
planned,
we
see
the
mutilated
body
of
a
woman
(and
we
know
who
did
it),
we
feel
the
injustice
for
the
sacrificed
son,
we
pity
Thersites’s
desperate,
lonely
self.
The
audience
is
the
ultimate
“commixation”(Troilus,
4.7.8),
both
male
and
female;
both
watchers
and
watched;
both
kinds
of
selves,
and
kinds
of
other
selves.
Tanya
Horeck
explains
that
“rape
is
central
to
the
workings
of
the
body
politic....the
body
becomes
a
ceremonial
battlefield”
(Horeck,
42).
She
clarifies
with
“stories
of
rape
are
essential
to
the
way
in
which
the
body
politic
is
imagined,
serving
as
a
site
for
cultural
conflict
and
the
embodiment
of
public
concerns”
(Horeck,
vii).
And
Jacinda
Read
offers
the
conclusion
that
rape
is
a
distinctly
post‐
sexual
thing,
and
that
rape‐revenge
is
“sub‐genre
horror”
(Read,
200).
Titus
revenging
his
daughter’s
rape
is
playing
the
“rape‐rules”.
Clearly
rape
isn’t
just
a
“girl
thing”.
Essentially,
the
doubling
that
8
Her
mutilated
body
is
then
recuperated
as
an
icon,
as
Rome
is,
and
assigned
a
meaning
beyond
the
violation,
which
in
turn
signifies
the
recuperation
of
the
unruly
body,
and
the
unruly
nation.
9
The
Accused
tells
the
true
story
of
Sarah
Tobias
who
was
brutally
gang‐raped
in
a
bar
in
upstate
Washington.
The
facts
of
the
case
state
that
Tobias
was
raped
repeatedly
over
various
stand‐alone
games
machines
in
full
view
of
the
bar.
I
believe
that
Taymor,
perhaps
unknowingly,
is
referencing
the
rape
scene
in
The
Accused
in
Titus.
18
Module:
Shakespeare
and
his
Contemporaries
Tutor:
Professor
Carol
Rutter
Student
ID:
0503731
takes
place
on
screen
and
film,
and
in
Shakespeare,
is
proof
that
bodies
don’t
just
matter,
bodies
are
matter.
Both
these
productions
move
and
use
bodies
as
the
text
suggests:
fluidly
and
referentially.
A
new
“sub‐genre”
of
body‐definition
is
created
for
contemporary
Shakespearean
performance.
This
reassigning
of
the
female
body,
the
theatre
that
requires
women
to
be
“this....and”
is
the
only
way
we
have
to
ensure
that
women
in
performance
will
never
be
mute
and
alone
in
the
swamp,
left
to
their
“silent
walks”(Titus,
2.4.8).
i
Helen
(Marianne
Oldham)
delivers
the
prologue
at
the
beginning
on
Troilus
and
Cressida.
Courtesy
of
Cheek
by
Jowl
Archive.
ii
Helen
and
Paris
(Oliver
Coleman)
pose
for
their
photo
shoot.
Courtesy
of
Cheek
by
Jowl
Archive.
iii
Thersites
(Richard
Cant)
reads
the
letter
to
Diomedes
(Mark
Holgate)
Courtesy
of
Cheek
by
Jowl
Archive.
iv
Thersistes
dressed
as
Helen,
to
the
Greek
and
Trojan
Lords.
Courtesy
of
Cheek
by
Jowl
Archive.
v
Lavinia
(Laura
Fraser)
in
the
marshes,
after
the
rape.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
vi
Close‐up
of
Lavinia.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
vii
Lavinia
vomits
blood.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
viii
Marcus
Andronicus
(Colm
Feore)
takes
Lavinia
in
his
arms.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
ix
Saturninus
(Alan
Cumming)
“undresses”
Tamora
(Jessica
Lange)
in
front
of
the
Senate.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
x
Saturninus
takes
Tamora’s
face
in
his
hand.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xi
Saturninus
looks
to
Lavinia.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xii
Lavinia
searches
through
Ovid.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xiii
Lavinia’s
rape
remembered.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xiv
Lavinia
writes
the
names
of
Chiron
and
Demetrius
in
the
sand.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xv
Titus
(Anthony
Hopkins)
breaks
Lavinia’s
neck.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
xvi
Tamora
is
murdered,
and
dies
vomiting
blood.
Julie
Taymor’s
Titus.
Courtesy
of
Twentieth
Century
Fox
19