First Draft of EA: Romeo and Juliet Scene Acting

Romeo and Juliet as one of the most well known work of William Shakespeare, is a love story but also a tragedy. However, the scene me and my partner decided to play is a scene with Juliet and Friar Laurence in his cell having an emotional conversation. This scene happens right after Juliet has received this bad new from her father to marry County Paris. The scene started with Juliet shouting”O Shut the door!....past hope, past cure, past help!.”, this shows how Juliet came right into the scene with indignant and impulse. Friar Laurence starting his first line after Juliet with “I already know thy gried” shows how he have been staying calm and quite while listening to Juliet pouring out her dissatisfaction as the moment she stepped into his cell. Also showing his sympathy and attentive. Acting friar Laurence tranquilly with steady body movement allows me to analyze deeper into his caring ,earnest characteristic and understand his trusting relationship with Juliet.

            In addition, we have decided to choose this specific scene because of its importance towards both characters and the plot. This reveals how Juliet chose to trust another adult instead of her parents and how Juliet became an emotional girl. However, to focus on my character Friar Laurence, this scene is also significant. Juliet’s choice without hesitate to ask help from friar Laurence have proved his credibility and justice impression being planted deeply in front of everyone. This scene especially emerges his kindness and righteous, how he was willing to stand on two teenagers’ side with no care of the hatress between the Capulets and the Montagues. He showed patient while listening to Juliet speaking and was also brave enough to suggest such risking resolution for Juliet. Friar Laurence as a god father seemed not as conservative and traditional, by excogitating such intense and dangerous plan for the couple. This might also be a reason why Romeo as an adolescent boy has a unordinary close relationship since the beginning of the story.

            While staging, we decided to dress friar Laurence---me, with a robe and a cross necklace to directly show the audience who I am acting. Other than costumes, we prepared a small bottle of dark color ink as the poison that appear later in the plot. On the other hand, to better portray our characters. We decided to use methods from Michael Chekhov’s lessons. First of all, I imagine myself as a father-like character facing an immature young girl having a bad temper asking me for help. How will a reliable adult react while facing a teenager trying to suicide because of her extreme emotion? Is a question I have asked myself before acting. Second of all, I try to act like how Michael Chekhov have taught in his lessons, to feel a power starting in my chest and spreading it into every part of my body, starting with smaller body movements then expand movements bigger. However, to show Friar Laurence’s calmness, I stand steady, walk steady and make less dramatic facial expression while acting.

            Specifically, I interpret this line from Friar Laurence “And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy” as a hesitation, which I showed in my performance by pausing between each one or two words following the coma. With this, I am hoping to show the audience that questions this solution because of it might be a clue of friar being irresponsible and also impulse as an adult to give to a young, emotional girl needing help a vial like this. However, by pausing in between the line shows how friar Laurence is concerned and worried. How he have been stopping and looking towards Juliet’s face to make sure what he is doing will help her and is comforting her mind at that moment. These pause eventually tells how he respects Juliet’s opinion and decision to choose what to do, take the vial or not. Moreover, to show a worried adult, I emphasizes the line “Thou shalt continue two and forty hours” by raising my voice after many lines being told to Juliet previously; the purpose is to make sure Juliet is listening carefully on the efficacy of the vial in case accidents occur.

            I have decided to change my tone and the atmosphere in the middle of our scene. Even though the overall atmosphere in this scene is intense and depressing, some change will keep the audience interested and the performance more vivid instead of speaking and acting in the same tone. Therefore, during this line “Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes”, I choose to raise my voice and wave my arms as the sun rising up. In order to keep audience concentrated and to show the significance of the bridegroom symbolizing hope in the scene where Juliet will be one more step closer to her love if everything went smoothly. Another part I choose to emphasize by speaking clearly, loudly and slowly, is within my last part of the scene: ”Hold, Get you gone, Be strong and prosperous”, This is like a spiritual catchphrase from Friar Laurence to Juliet before he lets her go. Before me saying this line, Juliet was yelling “Give me, give me! O tell me not of fear!”, this showed how she wasn’t thinking rationally. Therefore, me emphasizing “Hold”, with my hands holding on to Juliet’s shaking arm help showing how I wanted to calm her down and be reasonable on whatever she have decided to do. “Be strong and prosperous” sounded like a warning and a concern as well.

            As an actor acting for the very first time, memorizing the lines and acting naturally with emotion have been a challenge for me, especially acting a man made me as a girl more difficult to show the reliability and authority power of friar Laurence. However, what I have done well in the performance are the small details on acting. For example, continually patting Juliet on her back to show comfort as she spits out her anger. Also I choose to hide the dagger carefully as Juliet have handed it to me after an urge of suicide. In case of her emotions driving up her intention to suicide again, I was looking for a good place to hide the dagger where she would not see. Continually, I have also been trying to calm her down through the conversation by asking her to seat down. I stood straight to on imagery show Friar Laurence justice and authority.

            On the other hand, what I could have improve is my voice while speaking. I could have used a lower, deeper voice as a male. Another point I have put behind of mind while acting was my facial expression. We have decided what body movements to make for staging, but we have forgot our facial expression could also be a decisive way to express the atmosphere and a way to make the performance more real and vivid with changing facial expression while speaking out different lines of different meaning and purpose.

           

            

Grading sample essay

Literary features analysis of the text :5

because it describes how they interpret the character with given quotations directly from the scene to prove her statement. 

Exploration: 8 

Talks about and gives description on physical movements to show significances they want to show as the character.

Structure: 5

Separating paragraphs clearly made it easier readable. Does not mix up elements. 

Updated thesis statement

 Acting Friair Laurence with calmness through steady body movements allows me to understand his earnest characteristic presented in this specific scene and his trusting relationship with Juliet.

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.