A month of violence

[chani]

Violence was on my screens this month.

Violence in suburbs, violence at the cinema(Cronenberg's film), violence online (my post on torture) and yesterday, I got some violence without any screen, violence on stage. I went to see a 3h30 hours play written by Botho Strauss (but premiered in Paris before going to German theatres), based on Shakespeare's bloodiest play, Titus Andronicus. The story is actually modified and intensified on some decisive points. The title Shändung has been translated into French as Viol (Rape) which kinda confined the meaning to the sexual side of a mutilation. Actually the play is about the general degradation that spreads itself, propagating its contagion, polluting everything (including the audience!), endlessly giving birth to monsters. And Titus is a monster among others.

There were good things in the play but also horrible ones, and when I say horrible, I don't mean the bloody, gory scenes because that part was actually well done (especially the post-mutilation scene,  a very intense scene when the actress playing Lavinia was staggering on stage, completely naked and covered in blood and plastic in a Laura-Palmer-kind-of-way), no I'm talking about the scenes showing modern life that was outside of the Shakespearian plot or that "making-off" of the performance with pseudo-interviews giving insights on the plot, it was artificial, wordy and pretentious IMO. So the play could have lasted 2 h30 and would have been better without all that post-Bretch stuff.

You're gonna think I'm crazy and/or obsessed but of course now I'm thinking of some connections with the Buffyverse...

Botho Strauss' plot isn't focused on Titus himself, although the actor was pretty good, and Lavinia's mutilation played actually a major part. As in Titus Andronicus, the plot started with the ritual murder of a Goth, Tamora's eldest, by the victorious general Titus before Saturnianus became Emperor and married the Goth Queen. Then Titus's daughter, Lavinia, was raped by Tamora's sons (Demetrius and Chiron) and got mutilated by her rapists, her tongue and her hands being cut off. And eventually Titus offered a dinner and slayed Tamora, after having revealed the secret ingredient of the main course, that was the remains of her son, Chiron who has been killed by Titus. In Strauss' play Demetrius escaped so Chiron is the only one who got murdered by Titus and served as a dish.  In Shakespeare's Titus cut off his own hand to save his own sons while in Viol, he didn't. Actually he killed his young son in a fit of bad temper, and after he killed Chiron he cut off one of his hands that Tamora found later in the tureen (that bit was really over-the-top and some people in the audience were all ewwwwwww)!

Rape or threat of rape or attempt of rape was a recurring motif in Shakespeare's play, and so was it in the Jossverse (from season to season 7) which isn't surprising given to Joss' love for The Bard. Of course the cut-off hands thing in Titus and Viol are linked to real Roman traditions (it happened to Cicero after all!), but we could draw a parallel with Angel cutting off Lindsey's hand first and above all to Damage. Now I kinda see mutilated Spike in Damage as a new version of Lavinia, actually both Spike and Dana represent Lavinia. In Dana's case she can't tell her story nor recognize her torturer because her mind is broken and it isn't her but former Slayers who speak through her voice. She is kind of mute, just like Lavinia who was left without a tongue to speak.

One thing I really liked in Viol was that Botho Strauss explored Lavinia's alienation and gave her a double. It's Monica, her interpreter. The author shows Lavinia reinventing a voice that can really belong to her though it comes from someone else's tongue. It was a poetic idea, or rather a poetic licence. It's a trick Joss used a lot on BTVS when he wanted to explore the characters' journey, and he did it in various ways, from Angel/Angelus arc to vamp!Willow (revealing Willow dark side and ambiguoussexuality) to Buffy/Faith's rivalry to Rupert/Ripper in "Band Candy" to the Xander twins of "The Replacemen"t to the Buffybot (foreshadowing and echoing a going-through-the-motion-Buffy) to the uncorporeal evil doubles of season 7...

Little by little Monica even becomes Lavinia's replacement, and eventually Chiron forces himself on her too because she's still desirable, not a freak like that tongueless and handless Lavinia. The most daring change that Strauss made was Lavinia's journey. Her mutilation gives her freedom. She does with her body what she wishes. She, the victim of Schändung , wants to live, something that Titus doesn't bear and he doesn't slay her out of mercy ( that's Titus' version) but because he thinks that her choice is appalling. Lavinia wants to live and to make love...and she turns out to lust after Chiron, Chiron who yet raped and mutilated her along with his brother! Outrageous!

After he killed Chiron, Titus slayed Lavinia but kept Monica with him as his daugther because she suited him best and she's the one serving the cannibalitic's feast to Tamora in the end. At some point of the play every character slips up and becomes a monster.

One last thing. Ovid's book about the famous Greek myth of Philomele and Procne is often mentioned during Viol. Lavinia and Monica are like two sisters too, and Lavinia definitely plays Philomele's role.

In Ovid's version, the Thracian king Tereus routed the enemies of Athens and married Procne, daughter of king Pandion of Athens. Procne went to live in Thrace and gave birth to a son, Itys. After five years, she asked Tereus to bring her sister Philomele from Athens to visit her. Tereus duly returned to Athens, but fell in love with Philomele. He escorted her to Thrace, where he put ashore in a deserted spot, raped her and cut out her tongue when she threatened to denounce him. Leaving her incarcerated in a cottage, Tereus returned to Procne and pretended that Philomele was dead. Meanwhile, Philomele wove a tapestry depicting her rape and mutilation by Tereus and sent it to Procne, who understood its message and began to plot revenge on Tereus. Participating in the triennial rites of Dionysus she sought out Philomele's place of imprisonment and brought her back to Tereus' palace. The two sisters killed Itys, son of Procne and Tereus, and cooked his flesh. Procne then tricked Tereus into eating the dish she had prepared. At the conclusion of the meal she revealed Philomele and produced Itys's severed head. Tereus tried to kill the sisters but they were transformed into birds, a swallow and a nightingale, while he himself turned into a hoopoe.

It gives a new meaning to Spike calling girls birds!

And people thought that Joss was simply doing deconstruction with his characters? I say that Joss simply knows his classics and he followed some classical paths when he made his own mythology.

So Shakespeare drew his inspiration from many works from Anitiquity (Sophocles, Ovid, Apuleus etc), Joss and Botho Strauss got inspired by Shakespeare and old stuff, and here I'm making connections between everything. And you know what? I think that Joss Whedon actually showed his own  Schändung on screen too, but he called it The First Evil.

Some themes are just eternal.

Comments

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Some things are eternal.... Sinew of sadism?
Other than that I better just shut my mouth before it gets gagged. ;~P

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

You wish!

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

;~*

::Hugs you::

[ladyemorgaine.livejournal.com]

I have missed reading stuff like this.

Your post reminds me of Derrida's "The Monster Within" which in these cases, the play and Dana, creates monsters of others. And this extends from Darla to Angelus, Angelus to Dru, Dru to Spike....

The tradition of intergenerational trauma...