Titus Andronicus - Exploring Mutability

While I agree with Yann that Artaud is essentially contradicting himself in suggesting an exploration of a classical playwright like William Shakespeare, I think that Shakespeare's earliest text 'Titus Andronicus', being one of his most unknown works, is also a text that can easily apply itself to Artaud's ideas of a unique language of theatre. Perhaps the most poignant and shocking stage direction in this play comes in Act II, scene IV -'Enter the empress' sons with Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished.' The fact that a leading character is created a mute by the violent and brutal actions of others fits well, I think, with Artaud's ideas of language and cruelty. Lavina's distress and pain is subsequently expressed through physicality and this comes as a stark contrast to the lyrical and poetic language employed by Shakespeare when conveying the emotions of his other charaters. An Artaudian interpretation of this text could draw out this contrast by forcing the audience to become part of Lavina's physical torment, perhaps by presenting the action not on a conventional stage, but in a crowd of people. I think to remove all language from a Shakespearian text would be to destroy it, but Titus Andronicus allows space for a 'mute' and physical exploration of pain and self-ruin in a way that most of Shakespeare's texts do not.

I saw a production of this play in 2005 at the Globe, and a similar concept was employed whereby the most brutal acts of rape and revenge occured not on the main stage but in amongst the audience members in the pit. The audience was forced to respond naturally to the effects of violence, rather than to witness them from the safety distance of conventional theatre seating.