Brainstorming for essay

1. Critical analysis of literary features of text
Juliet shouting--> immature, unsteady emotion
trying to suicide--> extremely depress
Friar Laurence's repetition of words like "hold"-->show calmness and authority over Juliet to stop her

2.How text informed choices made in scene staging/acting
calmness--> walk steady even though Juliet seemed nervous and angry. Less facial expression.
sympathy--> Pat on Juliet's back and hugging her, asking her to sit down.

3. Reflection/ critique/ analysis of own performance
how well-->Walked calmy. contiunely trying to calm her down by holding her shaking hands.
could improve-->serious facial expression and lower voice tone like a man. more body movements during conversation. Try to hide the knife or keep the knife faraway from Juliet.

Bushnell Review

It was my first time watching a one-man play, which impresses me by the actor's acting skills. After doing ta before head research about the plot, I thought Warriors Don't Cry would be a performance being played by more than one actor. Since I thought it would be more shocking to put more actors in when a larger event happens in the plot. For example, when Melba got circled and yelled at with bad words. It might create more feeling for the audience to see the scene. However, the show was not bad as I thought it would be as a one-woman play. I thought it would be boring watching one person's performance. Eventually, I was wrong and found it interesting. It is more focused on the person's inside feelings instead of the overall story. The audience will feel something different and view the story differently as if they were Melba. We could see more deeply into the struggles the character was facing during specific conflicts that happened. This performance is like listening to a storyteller telling her own experience but with physical movements instead of descriptions in words.

        I was also surprised because of how big the amount of work she must have done in order to achieve this performance. Memorizing double, even triple amount of lines a normal actor would have to memorize for one single show, since she is the one and only actor on stage carrying all the plots in her lines. Worries of the audience getting bored or zoning out, it is more important for her to make enough surprises and shock for the audience to keep their attention on her. Another impressing part was seeing how she changed her speaking voice and her action switches between different character. For example, when she was acting Melba's grandmother, she used a hoarse voice and arches her back to show the differences between Melba using a higher pitch of voice and jumping around energetically. 

Beforehead Research :: Warriors Don't Cry

     This story is about nine black teenagers at year 1957 in Arkansas, called the Little Rock Nine. They were the first black integrated students during that time period. The main character Melba was one of the teenager and their way to integrated was difficult with people like national guards trying to stop them all the times. Eventually, she successfully went to university and she have learned that "we are all one" between different races. However, during that time, segregation is happening and many unequal treatments are being legal.
   It is a memoir of Melba. She is already in the front line of civil right movements when she's only sixteen years old. These nine students are risking many challenges in the society just to recieve a better education.
   On the Bushnell website, it metioned that it is a one-woman play, which rises my curiosity on watching the show. The website also tells that this play with will be providing questions and issues about hate speech and bullying for us students to discuss afterwards. So it is a beforehead warning for me to pay attention, too.
   Some quotes I found about Warriors Don't Cry that I could listen to carefully tomorrow during the performance.
“Change the rules of the game, girl, and they might not like it so much.”
“They’d think I was crazy.”
“They’d think you were no longer their victim.”

Review

 

           Our final performance on Romeo and Juliet's Act IV Scene 1 came out not as bad and scrappy as I thought it would be, based on our previous run throughs. However, I think the best part me and my partner did well was staying calm whenever we got stuck. I have been struggling with my memorization of the script. Fortunately, I passed by all my lines without stopping and without any obvious pause during the performance. 

          On the other hand, things that could have been done better are more than I thought it would be after watching the recorded video. Right after acting, I felt that we did a great job. But after watching the video, I realized that I was still focusing too much on memorizing the lines, I should have made this emotional scene stronger for the audience to feel the atmosphere. I should also show more of the characteristics Friar Laurence has to contrast myself and Juliet's characteristic. For example, the starting part where I was reading a bible and praying, I should have walked in a slower and steadier path to open the door for Juliet, even though the knocking sound was desperate and loud. It would have been a way to show my calmness as a friar within all kinds of situation. Another difficulty and mistake I made, was on my voice and tone. I should have made my lines more fluently with high and low tones, soft and strong voices, in order to make it more interesting and more vivid. I realized that I sound like a machine while acting parts where I have longer lines to memorize.

            I would say that nothing is too easy for our first acting. Oppositely, a hard part on acting is definitely to memorize and read out the lines naturally like a native speaker and like the character. Controlling facial expression is also harder comparing to bigger body movements we have done while performing.

           Overall, I tried my best on portraying friar Laurence  using many ways, which  came out acceptable as a result. Even though I tried mimicking a man's voice, but it is difficult to stay in such a low and rough voice for the whole scene. With the customs' help, people recognized me as friar Laurence immediately. I tried to walk like a man with bigger steps, but in the video it seemed like I was walking blundering. In my opinion, I portrayed the character well enough that people knows who I am but I am not sure if I have portrayed the character well enough that the audience could tell his personalities within one scene.  Some literary features in my scene are hyperbole and personification. Many items and actions are being described with verbs that are used for human actions. Also mentioning how the bridegroom will rouse Juliet from her bed in the morning, is a kind of personification on an animal. Most of the lines of Juliet shows more hyperbole comparing to mine, lines like "tie me with roaring bears" and many other emotional lines. Last but not least, I have adapted to literary features where the tones are being brought with more emotional by loudering my voice and emphazing words where it is using hyperbole or words that are showing important informations for Juliet to be aware of.  

   

"The Dead" Review

      It has been a long time since the last time I have watched our school's play. This is the first one of the year and I was surprised with some new players in the performance, it is also fun to see some new performance rather than people that have always been acting. First of all, I really like the setting of the play. It is more realistic and it feels like you are really inside the performance and inside the situation of each scenes being showed. The only cost of this creative setting is that, it is sometimes difficult to keep my head turning in a direction towards my back, I have to turn back and rest a little bit! However, it is a really new method in our school's play and it definitely took the backstage people more works to set up the stage. However, this is such a creative and fun way to connect and create a closer interaction between the actors and the audiences. 

      Second of all, I really like this play having a quote surrounding and giving a theme to the plot. It is also a quote, me as an audience, have an echo, resonance with. I believe that many other audience have this feeling, too. It is a quote that applies to so many situation in real life, which after watching this show and listening to this powerful quote being read by great actors, we felt understood and felt more connected to the emotions. 

      I also like a turning point on how the audience views Fraddy Malins, from a drunk, rude man to a courageous man with words of wisdom. At first, I thought this person is definitely a troublemaker and a disrespectful character. Oppositely, it turned out that his characteristic have reminded people around him that, they should not be restricted by others opinion, they should not take people's complain into their concerns and limit themselves because of it. It is always stunning when people find out great lessons on people that we thought wasn't acting like a typical nice and polite person. Overall, this is a meaningful play that I enjoyed watching. 

Acting Log #3

                This week, we did a run through without our script on stage; which, I think went not as well as we thought it would be. First of all, I forgot a lot of my lines while acting on the stage, maybe I was too nervous and maybe I did not memorize my lines as well as I thought I did off the stage. However, I lost my feelings and concentration as Friar Laurence, I started stressing out on stage when I forgot my lines, it was awkward and cut off all the emotions we tried to express for the scene, and for the audience, too. We tried to show authority of friar Laurence, but since he is a comforting character, so he soon low down his level on the floor to match with Juliet when she was acting desperate and sad.
                 On the other hand, we finally got our props from the props room. We took a cross for friar Laurence and a small bottle of ink as the vial, Sarah have also took a dagger for Juliet. Acting with props definitely made our performance more vivid and real, since we do not have an experienced and super good acting skill, the props did helped the audience to know clearly about the scene.
                  As an actor we tried to put into more emotions just like what we did in our previous practices; however, combining in emotion, memorizing the lines and memorizing our blockings in the first few time while performing was quite difficult. It is hard to keep my brain be aware of so many things as once. Practice makes perfect, I think this quote definetily is what I should be achieving. We decided to practice a few more times together again before Monday's filming, instead of memorizing our lines individually during weekend.
                 Overall, our performance did reflect what we were practicing. Comparing to our first run through on stage, the second time we felt more comfortable to act in front of classmates and to show our expressions. We made more obvious body movements and fixed the part where people told us were being too exegerated. Gladly, our classmates' feedback are so much better comparing to the first time, except of my poor memorization parts. We also tried to speak more clearly. For me, after memorizing the lines, I understood the meaning of each lines better than reading straight from the script. Therefore, I know better where to pause and where to emphasize my words. For our next performance, we will try to create more touching and interaction between friar laurence and Juliet, during that time period it is normal and how they show their caring. We also watched more videos on Youtube, we also realized that our facial expression should be more serious. Because one of the video we watched, both actors acted to frivolous and with a too much smilely expression on their face that ruined the atmosphere of the scene's sadness. Some small details we should also pay more attention to while acting, is the way we stand and the way we walk. It is also one of the best way to express the difference between Friar Laurence and Juliet's emotion, characteristic and different authority.

Fall play photo

Acting Log 2

Second week Day 1
Today, every group goes up on the stage to do a run through of our scenes. Extraordinary, I think me and my partner Sarah read louder comparing to the voice we used during practice in the past few days. However, this activity is helpful, because we get to know what the audience sees from us and how we could improve other than what ourselves have discovered from last week's practices on our own. Some feedbacks suggested us to have bigger movements, which we are struggling with since we could not come up with more body movements in this scene. A few feedbacks also told me to slow down, which I will try to improve next time. A great thing I saw and I wanted to learn from, is Yichen's acting in her performance, she fells down and almost fainted when her character Juliet is extremely desperate, sad and angry to her father. This shows a strong and vivid image for the audience to understand her feelings within a short performance on an important scene.

Second week Day 2
Today, Me and my partner carefully read through Ms. Guarino's feedback which was helpful since many questions were bring asked in this feedback for us to discuss and improve. For example, how should I show Friar Laurence's authority and what should I be doing when Juliet enters the cell with anger, also when should I stand or sit to express different situation and emotions. However, for my part as Friar Laurence I decided to stand more comparing to Juliet with a weaker personality and a negative ming set during that specific scene we're acting to. Also, I agree to the feedback that we were having too much saying lines towards the end of the scene. I think we should put a pause of speaking lines and add more motions and pause for a point to let the audience digest the plot, since Juliet will be rushing into the stage and shouting her lines. During this pause, I would like to set it in between the time where Friar Laurence gives Juliet the vial. In addition, I could pull Juliet to sit down on a chair to calm her down and comfort her sadness, by the time, telling her that I do have a solution if she would listen to me. On the other hand, to show Friar Laurence's authority, other than wearing something formal and decent, I think I should stand straighter. We're still thinking of a solution so show Friar's authority in a short performance.

Second week Day 3
After yesterday's discussion, we quickly run through our lines with all the added in body movements, from standing, sitting or me praying in the begining before Juliet comes in. Moreover, I came up with an idea that maybe Juliet could wait for a second after Friar Laurence finish up his last sentence of his prayer in order to show his authority, if this movement won't affect the plot. But for most of the time today, we were working on our memorizations since there will be a quiz tomorrow on our lines. We tried to write it down and found it easier than to speak it aloud when memorizing.