It's True, It's True, It's True

Breach Theatre

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786826619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Fringe First and Total Theatre Award- winning Breach (Tank, The Beanfield) restage the 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi for the rape of baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Based on surviving court transcripts, this new play dramatises the seven-month trial that gripped Renaissance Rome, and asks how much has changed in the last four centuries. Blending myth, history and contemporary commentary, this is the story of how a woman took revenge through her art to become one of the most successful painters of her generation.

SCENE EIGHT

The JUDGE signals ARTEMISIA to approach a table, opposite TASSI. She takes a moment to prepare before looking up to meet his eyes.

JUDGE: Please proceed.

ARTEMISIA: As I have told Your Lordship, last year during the month of May, Agostino used to frequent my father’s house. He came as a friend and we trusted him. But one day he came to the house, and as I have said, I would never have believed that he would dare do damage both to me and the friendship he had with my father. I did not realise it until he grabbed me by the waist, threw me on the bed, locked the door and raped me, taking away my virginity. The struggling went on for hours, and no one came to help me.

JUDGE: Signor Tassi?

TASSI: That I have raped her is not true, nor that I have had relations with her. In her house there was a man named Francesco with whom you couldn’t trust a female cat, and he was alone with her both day and night. And Pasquino from Florence, who boasted publicly that he’d had her. I visited her house with respect.

JUDGE: Would you be willing to confirm and substantiate your testimony under torture?

Silence.

TASSI looks to the JUDGE, and realises it is ARTEMISIA being addressed. Both look to ARTEMISIA.

ARTEMISIA: Me?!

The JUDGE begins to undress ARTEMISIA.

JUDGE: I propose a moderate use of the sibille. Thumbscrews.

The JUDGE puts a paint bucket on the table.

ARTEMISIA: But I’m not the one that’s on trial here.

The JUDGE begins to undress ARTEMISIA to her underwear. There is a small but violent struggle before she finally relents.

JUDGE: Let me explain. The instrument is made of metal and ropes. We will wind these around your fingers and pull on them. Pulled tight enough, your fingers will be broken – tighter still and they will be cut off.

ARTEMISIA: I’m not the one that’s on trial.

JUDGE: We appreciate that Artemisia, but we can’t risk Signor Tassi’s hands – he’s a painter.

ARTEMISIA: I’m a painter.

JUDGE: For the Pope. This is the surest way to strengthen your case. Remove any mark of infamy.

ARTEMISIA: I have told the truth and I always will.

JUDGE: Then if you could please place your hands into the device, and repeat your claim for the record.

The JUDGE gestures to the paint bucket and ARTEMISIA looks inside it, horrified. The JUDGE takes her hands and forces them into the bucket. She looks TASSI in the eye across the table.

ARTEMISIA: I have told the truth and I always will. It is true. It is true. It is true.

TASSI: It is not true, you are lying through your teeth.

ARTEMISIA: It is true, it is true, it is true.

TASSI: Artemisia.

ARTEMISIA: It is true.

TASSI: Stop it.

ARTEMISIA: It is true, it is true, it is true.

TASSI: Stop!

JUDGE: Alright, alright.

[Plague – Crystal Castles]

ARTEMISIA removes her hands, shaking with pain, claw-like, which are covered and dripping with shimmering gold paint.

TASSI: Don’t...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Prolouge
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• Scene Nine
• Scene Ten