Week 6-Your production

WEEK 6 – YOUR PRODUCTION

RESEARCH: Research your own Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost or Titus Andronicus. What is the play about? When was it first performed? Find a contemporary production of the play you can get an idea of and research it in terms of concept, style, design, casting. Give some attention to your own character and their role in the play.

Titus Andronicus is a tragic play written by Shakespeare between 1588 -1593 it is thought to have been the first tragedy he wrote. It is also thought however not proven that he collaborated with George peele on writing the play.  The first recorded performance was in early 1594 at5 the rose theatre in London. The exact date was 24 January however it was acted by 3 different companies within a short time after this. 

Although it is set in Rome during the Roman Empire it is not a historical play however it is a mix of medieval myths and legends. Shakespeare took inspiration from several sources, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses which he used to inspire lavinas rape, then Seneca’s Thyestes in which two sons are served for dinner much like Chiron and Demetrius.

The main theme of the play is revenge, The play is set in the roman empire, a war has just finished and saturnine and bassianus are arguing over who will now take the throne after the deceased emperor their father, Titus is offered the power by Marcus however he turns it down and says that saturnine should be given the throne. He then takes Tamora the queen of Goths as his empress and she vows revenge on Titus for killing her eldest son. This revenge takes place through Chiron and Demetrius raping and cutting of the hand and tongue of lavina (Titus daughter).  Titus then eventually kills Chiron and Demetrius and serves them in a pie at a banquet to Tamora and then kills Tamora then lavina and saturnine kills Titus who is then avenged by lucius who is made emperor at the end of the play.  

Looking at Seoul’s Shakespeare company’s version( video embedded to hte left) the first thing i noticed that was different from our version of the play was that is had males playing males and women playing women, our production decided to have an all female cast and it completely changed the dynamics of the play, The character of Demetrius that i play was more of a comedic character than serious, the first introduction in the play is of Chiron and Demetrius arguing over lavina, in this production their first entrance was then cat fighting with each other in a comedic way whereas in our production my character was more evil and serious.  The casting of all the characters was closer to what the character would have been like mainly due to the fact that there are the correct genders playing the correct roles.

The costumes for this production were closer to how they would have been in earlier productions, they matched their characters and the time era whereas in our production we used similar costumes for everyone and was more experimental. The way that this play is was more naturalistic to how it was written and hasn’t changed too much, even the set is pretty basic with just a doorway and stair either side with  props occasionally being brought on.

Furthermore the naturalism was also seen during the physicalisation of characters, there was no outlandish physical traits whereas during our production we all had more of a physicalised way of moving, especially my character who was crouched down for most of the play.