Titus Act 3: I wanna Hold your Hand

After the super serious blog yesterday, I'd like to take this moment  to share my favorite Titus Andronicus memory. It was in my 1st week of grad school and Clara and I were among some other classmates seeing the ASC production, and we shared the mixed horror and delight when at intermission the actors began to play the Beatles song I wanna hold your hand. Dark humor at it's best. Think I'm just talking about Lavinia? Read on...
3.1
We start with Titus begging for his sons that are accused of Bassianus' murder to be forgiven or found innocent. Lucius warns Titus that no one hears him:
Why, tis no matter, man; if they did hear,
They would not mark me, or if they did mark,
They would not pity me, yet plead I must;  
Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;  
Who, though they cannot answer my distress,  
Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,  
For that they will not intercept my tale:  
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; ...  
A stone is soft as wax,--tribunes more hard than stones;
There's something epic and almost biblical about this speech. It reminds me of talk about Pharaoh's hardened heart, etc. Again, just a lot of incredible beauty against the anguish and absurdity. Then we start talking about another one of Shakespeare's favorite animals, you know, aside from dogs:
Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
But me and mine:
and just to make Titus' grief all the worse, in comes Marcus with Lavinia:
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep;
Or, if not so, thy noble heart to break:
I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 
Will it consume me? let me see it, then.  
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
This was thy daughter.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 
Why, Marcus, so she is.
That tense correction is always chilling. That regardless of the damage and the self imposed shame lavinia is feeling, she is STILL his daughter.
and he that wounded her Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead:
*Let's take a moment to contemplate what things we think are worse than death. and go...
ok, now back to titus
Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,  
It would have madded me: what shall I do
Now I behold thy lively body so?
Thou hast no hands, to wipe away thy tears:
Side note, from a purely technical standpoint, playing Lavinia is a pain. How do I know this, having never played Lavinia, because I played another character that has no hands- Anne Dexter in The Queens:

not having hands, while an instant character physicalization, is a SERIOUS PAIN- both literally- your hands start cramping up as you twist them in a way that can make the stumps look semi-believable, and otherwise- you can't make a quick note of changes in blocking during tech week because you have no hands to use your pencil. you can't easily itch your nose, but damn it if you don't walk out of every rehearsal and performance thanking God you still have your hands. So take a moment and be so happy for your hands. (additionally, lavinia has to do a lot of work with stage blood in her mouth which thankfully i've never had to do- i have decided though that if I were playing such a role I would hope that I could keep red velvet cupcake mix in my mouth as stage blood- just sayin....)Anyway... Titus is so upset that he's making lavinia hate herself even more, which is so sad to watch.
LUCIUS 
Sweet father, cease your tears; for, at your grief,
See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.
And into this party of mourning comes Aaron. and this is what he has to say:
Titus Andronicus, my lord the emperor  
Sends thee this word,--that, if thou love thy sons,
 Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
Or any one of you, chop off your hand,  
And send it to the king: he for the same  
Will send thee hither both thy sons alive;  
And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
Cue the absurdity- Marcus, Lucius, and Titus start arguing over WHO GETS TO CHOP OFF THEIR HAND! truly TRULY absurd. so Titus tricks Marcus and lucius to go get an axe and the two of them can argue it out on the way, in the meantime he has aaron chop off his hand so when Marcus and Lucius come back with the axe there's no longer a use for it. Aaron then let's us know that Titus may have tricked them but in the end, he's tricked titus even worse:
I go, Andronicus: and for thy hand
Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
[Aside]
Their heads, I mean. O, how this villany
Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace.
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.
Yeah, so the dude cut off his hand for nothing...
What, wilt thou kneel with me?  
Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers;
I love that moment. That if you can't use your voice in the world you can start with knowing that heaven still hears you. when no one else will listen, heaven still hears you.
Then Titus really starts to go crazy.
If there were reason for these miseries,  
Then into limits could I bind my woes:  
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?
and then even moreso:
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 
Why, I have not another tear to shed:
Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,  
And would usurp upon my watery eyes
And make them blind with tributary tears:  
Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?
and so we're back to vengeance. death death death. oh, did I mention that Titus' arms get sent back with what's left of his sons who he has clearly not saved? So titus suggests this horrifying course of action:
Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd: these arms!
Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.
As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight;
Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay:
Hie to the Goths, and raise an army there:
And, if you love me, as I think you do,
Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.
Few things can make an audience squirm/laugh uncomfortably like poor lavinia carrying off a bloody hand in her bloody mouth...
and that's 3.1

3.2
A shorter scene where we are introduced to the idea of the next generation and what all this cycle of violence stuff is doing to them, a theme that will be further developed later. It's meal time and Titus, Marcus, Lavinia, and "young lucius" are around the table with this cheery dinner talk:
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!  
When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,  
Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.  
Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;  
Or get some little knife between thy teeth,  
And just against thy heart make thou a hole;
That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall  
May run into that sink, and soaking in  
Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
 MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
 Fie, brother, fie! teach her not thus to lay
Such violent hands upon her tender life.
have I mentioned that sometimes this play kills my heart? But just when i think I can't take it anymore I get another dose of a much needed laugh:
Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.  
What violent hands can she lay on her life?  
Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands;
That awkward moment where you realize you've said hands to your handless friends... and then young Lucius cuts in:
Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments: Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
the child bids Titus look on the bright side of life, but that is not to be. sorry about your childhood becoming more violent and twisted by the second young lucius! And then we get into the would or wouldn't kill a fly section:
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
At that that I have kill'd, my lord; a fly.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 
Out on thee, murderer! thou kill'st my heart;
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny:
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother: get thee gone:
I see thou art not for my company.
MARCUS ANDRONICUS 
Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.
TITUS ANDRONICUS 
 But how, if that fly had a father and mother?  
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill'd him.
WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?! Marcus says the only thing that can take Titus from kill nothing to fly masachre machine in seconds, he compares the fly to Aaron and Tamora:
O, O, O, Then pardon me for reprehending thee,  
For thou hast done a charitable deed.  
Give me thy knife, I will insult on him;  
Flattering myself, as if it were the Moor  
Come hither purposely to poison me.
-- There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.  
Ah, sirrah!  
Yet, I think, we are not brought so low,  
But that between us we can kill a fly
And Marcus then realizes that no good can come from Titus' mania.
Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him, He takes false shadows for true substances.
More absurdity, more violence, and more death to follow soon. it's tech times once again (I did not anticipate being involved in so many artistic endeavors in a single year when I started this blog! It may mean I don't finish in the year's goal I originally set for myself, but it's because i have amazing shows and opportunities happening and who can complain about that?!?!)
And just for the fun of it: