30 days of Shakespeare: Day 6 - Your favourite villainess

[nwhyte]

There is a sort of unwritten challenge in this meme to try and pick different plays for each day. I don't think I'll manage it, but this question in particular prompted me to delve rather deep. One villainess who operates very much to her own agenda, using men and spitting them out again (and they return the favour to her and her family) is Tamora, Queen of the Goths, in Titus Andronicus. It's a really violent play. One tally has the average rate of atrocities at one every 97 lines. Tamora's bitter feud with the title character drives the narrative; the story ends with Titus killing her sons for raping Titus's daughter and then serving them to their mother cooked in a pie. Yes, really.

Yet for all the horror, Shakespeare gives Tamora agency and motivation, and plenty of sex. Here Jessica Lange plays her courting her Moorish lover, though with unwanted onlookers:

Click to view

Oddly enough this one hasn't been filmed very often.

The 30 days:
Day #1: Your favourite play
Day #2: Your favourite character
Day #3: Your favourite hero
Day #4: Your favourite heroine
Day #5: Your favourite villain
Day #6: Your favourite villainess
Day #7: Your favourite clown
Day #8: Your favourite comedy
Day #9: Your favourite tragedy
Day #10: Your favourite history
Day #11: Your least favourite play
Day #12: Your favourite scene
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favourite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favourite speech
Day #18: Your favourite dialogue
Day #19: Your favourite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favourite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favourite couple
Day #27: Your favourite couplet
Day #28: Your favourite joke
Day #29: Your favourite sonnet
Day #30: Your favourite single line