This is one of the most difficult plays by Shakespeare. First it takes place in many very different locales from the Imperial court of Rome to some forest scenes out of Rome and other "wild" areas, not to speak of private homes, particularly that of Titus Andronicus himself. The BBC chose a constructed setting that could easily be transformed but it basically always had the same semi-circle structure which was in fact a full circle giving the possibility of entering or exiting it at different points diametrically opposed.
The second difficulty is that several scenes require massive armies and massive crowds. This is of course not possible in a constructed setting. It only becomes possible in a real or realistic outdoor setting, like streets, squares, roads, open countryside, etc. So it is not a surprise that these massive crowds or armies are not shown on the stage, in fact on the screen. In other words the BBC chose to keep a rather limited space; a little bit the way it is in a theater, which is in a way surprising for television, but it is a remark that can be done for most of these productions.
The third great difficulty is the tremendous number of people who are killed in a way or another on the stage itself, or maimed and killed just in the wings, parts of whose bodies are brought onto the stage for some kind of provocation against one character or other. We can think the black baby is probably a prop.
But what is important is not at all such details but the very Shakespearian meaning of the play. A crime is committed at the beginning, a legal crime but a crime nevertheless, because Titus Andronicus showed no pity, compassion or empathy and he was cruel. Titus Andronicus yields to a demand from his officers to have one of the sons of the Goth Queen given to them to be sacrificed in order to atone the pain and suffering of the survivors of the war campaign as for the dead who are brought realistically on the stage in the shape of four of Titus Andronicus' sons on stretchers. [...]
Titus had been cruel then and he did not demonstrate any mercy and forgiveness after the war. It might be legal, it is a human crime nevertheless. The Shakespearian treatment of the situation is typical. All protagonists will be dispatched to death except two: Titus Andronicus' brother who represents the Senate and has the power to appoint the emperor, and as such who had proposed the throne to his brother Titus Andronicus when he returned from the war. Titus refused and favored the elder son of the dead emperor. [...] The second survivor is Lucius, the eldest son of Titus Andronicus who had been banned, or had escaped on his father's order, to get into an alliance with the Goths, returning to Rome at the head of Goth armies (that sounds a lot like Fortinbras in Hamlet). A third one is spared: the grandson of Titus Andronicus, the Young Lucius, son of Lucius, Titus Andronicus' eldest son, probably because he did not come back from the war due to his young age
And that was the beginning of the descent. This new emperor married the Goth Queen out of spite for Titus Andronicus who had appointed him, and he liberated the prisoners, her two sons and her Moor adviser Aaron (black on the stage, why not, though Moor was more on the Jewish side at the time, especially with his name, but that is a detail.)
All protagonists will be exterminated. Titus Andronicus' brother Marcus Andronicus will be the one who orders the transition once again as the tribune of the Senate and he will call Lucius to the throne. The end is then close. They have to throw Tamora's body to wild beasts and to bury Aaron, her adviser, alive but chest-deep only for him to die of starvation and thirst. The production has Young Lucius holding the open box containing the black baby at the end and the box is gently closed by his father who brings him to his grandfather's body to kiss him. This production makes the child not kiss his grandfather in spite of considerate nice words.
Altogether this production is very tamed and even mild. All violent acts that take place in front of the audience are either very symbolical or realistically performed though outside the screen, like the cutting off of Titus Andronicus' hand; just the hand is off the screen though it takes Aaron two or three blows to manage the cutting, and those we see. When we know that 15 years earlier John Stubbs had his right hand chopped off with a butcher's cleaver and a mallet for the authorship of a book that displeased – not without any reason, true enough – Elizabeth I, we may find this particular act of violence still active in the memory of quite a few people. I say this because we do not seem to understand that England at that time was just getting out of some religious turmoil that meant many executions and killings and violent acts with the reformation first and the attempt of Mary I, aka Bloody Mary, to re-establish Catholicism. It was a violent time. Luckily women married early, often under 13, and had many children so that a couple could reach procreative time and perpetuate, even develop the species, at least the English branch of it. That was not a unique case in Europe, and probably the whole world.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
