9/30 Homework

My first impression of Romeo is a straightforward boy.  He is in the Shakespeare's first scene with a dead face because he crashes into a girl, Rosaline, but the girl refuses him.  He uses a bunch of lines to describe love, to describe the feeling of being love.  He says, "Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes, Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with loving tears.  What is it else?  A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet."  In Romeo's words, love is the strongest power in the world.  It is so strong that it can calm and erase hate.  Love can make people feel a deep sadness while they can find the happiness in love at the same time.  In a conclusion, Romeo believes that  love can drive people crazy, and people deeply enjoy the feeling of love.  From the lines, we can see that Romeo has a clear understanding of love.  It demonstrates that he has the experience, and he is brave enough to love someone even he knows the struggling of love.  On the party, when he sees Juliet, he falls in love with her immediately.  Even though it is unusual in reality, his behavior makes me think he is a brave and straightforward boy.  I admire him because I think that is what a man should do in front of love, even though the man at that time is acting like an impulsive boy.

Juliet in Shakespear's first scene is totally different from Romeo.  She is a tressure in her family, so she is protected so well that she hardly has a friend.  She is quite shy and quiet, and her words are few.  The language she uses is polite and appropriate.  When she is asked for founding love, she says, "I'll look to like, if I looking like move; But no more deep will I endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly."  From the lines, it seems like Juliet does not know what the love is, or Juliet is really careful about the love.  On the party, when Romeo wants to kiss her, she is little unwilling.  I respect Juliet's choice because it is reasonable for girls to consider more and hesitate when they talk about love.  According to the tradition, girls should be more passive and restraining, so that they can be protected from doing any mistake, especially for love.  

If I compare Juliet and Romeo, I like Romeo better.  It is more straightforward and clear when you announce your love.  In my opinion, love can be simple, but it can be complicated as well, which all depends on people's movements.  Most of the time, people will regret not to confess, and they will miss the people they love because they missed them.  I like the person who is brave to love, and the person who has the ability to love.     

9/28 Notes

The Stage:
1. It was covered with a roof, "The Heavens."  While the roof protected the actors from the weather, the attic space above could hold machinery.
2.  It was small.  The open yard in front of the stage in one theater measured fifty-five feet across.
3.  The actual scenery may have been suggested through dialogue or may have included minimal set pieces such as a few trees to suggest a forest, or a rock to suggest a river bank.
4.  Had many built-in acting areas that could function in a number of ways.

Clothing:
1.  Based on the contemporary clothing styles of the time.

Play:
1.  Played by young boy (even female characters)

Language:
1.  The pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.  Each pattern is referred to as a foot.
2.  There are 5 feet to a line--Iambic Pentameter

Reflection on Romeo and Juliet Short Play

The three short plays on Romeo and Juliet were all great because it is difficult to condense a three-hour drama to such a short time.  The common in the plays is that the main characters are the same, Romeo and Juliet, and we all played out the love and death so the love and death would be the main theme or the play.  

However, the more time, the more plot the story will contain.  Then, the conflict between two families is told more clearly.  Actually, even in the 30 seconds story, Yun acted out the conflict by an abstract figure.  The conflict should be the second important theme or topic in Romeo and Juliet. 

Notes on Act 1 Romeo and Juliet

The electric book in iBooks increases my interest in reading the ancient English book.  I read Othello last year, and it is truly difficult to read because of too many confusing words.  However, when I read Romeo and Juliet today, I found out it is not necessary to know the meaning of each word.  After I read through the scripts, I can watch the short recording clips, and then I know what happens in the story and what the emotion of characters.  It is easy for people to understand the plot, and I think that is how fascinating that the performance has.

The first half of Act 1 explains the background that Capulet and Montague are wealthy powerful families that they are against with each other.  Our main character, Romeo is from Montague, and Juliet is from Capulet.  Then, one day Juliet's father hold a party for Juliet to let her knows Paris, a wealthy nobleman, and her father want Juliet to consider the marriage with Paris.  

From the story so far I am impressed by two characters: Benvolio and Tybalt.  Benvolio is one of Romeo's close friends.  He has a good temper, and we can see it from the fighting at the beginning of the story between servants.  He is also a wise man I think because when he helps Romeo out of the pain of love, he suggests Romeo to attend the Capulet's party to compare the girl that Romeo loved with other girls.  How sweet he is to ignore the biases and gaps between Capulet and Benvolio.  Every member came to the stage so far have their strong bias on the opposite family, so it makes Benvolio reveal that how smart and fair he is. 

Another character, Tybalt, has opposite personalities with Benvolio, and I do not like him.  He has a strong short temper, which can cause a big trouble both for his family and himself.  In fact, if we continue reading that, we can see the cause of death and the start point of tragedy are from Tybalt.  We really should treat others with our patience, even the people that we don't like.

Reflection on Devising and Performing

On the process of devising and performing, we all contributed many good ideas.  There were four ideas, two ideas were from me, and the others were from Cassidy.  My ideas were more toward the metaphors, and Cassidy’s stories are easier to act out.  Therefore, we used her story--a girl who has mental barricade and wanted to overcome her illness.  It is an attractive topic because we can emphasize the process that one breaks through his/her weakness or limit.  However, the inner conflict between the girl is difficult for us to act out, and the reason is that the audience will be confused to recognize the character.

As a leader, Cassidy did a great job.  Because the idea belongs to her, she created a basic structure and background of the story in the weekend.  She wrote a beginning of the story, and I personally continued to write the plot and finished the story.  I did not write Cassidy’s lines on the weekends because I would love to listen to her suggestion.  I think if it is a devising performance, the actors should write their lines by themselves so that they can be easy to go into the characters.  Therefore, we talked about the ending and wrote lines together.  However, when we practiced, Cassidy changed the lines almost every time, so it was a challenge for me so far.  I had to catch her point and answer her question.  Sometimes, I could not think that quickly, but I thought I would get used to it.

The practice on Tuesday was good, but there was some rush in the end.  For example, we did not act out the climax, the girl breaks her weakness, with our full emotion.  Then, we need to introduce Denny’s character more, and we have to give our characters’ names.  Therefore, Cassidy fixed the introduction part to make the characters clear, and I changed the climax that I stopped Cassidy and then she pushed me away so that we could act out the most intense scene.

The others’ performances were great as well.  Aaron, David, and Jacob used a freezing point to give each character a monologue so that they will emphasize the emotion of each character and their conflict.  The freezing point made the performance really fresh and made the characters active.  Secondly, I was surprised that others added a narrative in it, and I thought it might be good for us to help the audience to figure out the inner and outro of our main character.  After considering, I thought it would be unnecessary to add narrative if we could make a huge difference while making a close connection between inner and outro of character.  Even though the narrative is a good tool to tell the story’s background, I think we can try our best to let the audience figure out the character by themselves.

Note about Advising Theatre

Definition

Devised Theatre--- Collaborative Creation: A form of theatre where the script originates not from a writer(s), but from collaborative, usually improvisatory, work by a group of people.

Typically begins with little more than a rehearsal space and a group of eager, committed theatre practitioners.  Through a series of improvisatory theatre games or other conceptual ice-breakers.

A process in which the whole creative team develops a show collaboratively.  From actors to technicians, everyone is involved in the creative process.

Methods

• Begin by focusing on form
• Then extract thematic ideas and work with them retrospectively
• Often use games as a starting point
• Depends on a lot of the style of the performance group
• Start with building characters and then build narrative strands together out of the character-based improvisational interaction.

Related to today’s class, I have a chance to get to know my identity in the class. If there is any Devising Theatre we are going to do as a project, I think I will be a good participant.  Saying from another way, I cannot be a director (if they need a director at late of the project).  Director should be the person who is full of passion and who can impress others.  Even though I have passion, I am still too quiet and hesitate to let others follow my order.  However, I think I can be a good ideas presenter.  I would love to collect others’ ideas and suggest a common idea that all of us can accept.    

The Experience of Fence Monologue

After reading Fences, I was mad at Troy.  I regarded Troy as a positive protagonist at the beginning of the story because he protested the race bravely, but I was disappointed when I saw him cheating on other women and deterring other's dreams.  I was afraid to put an extreme perspective on the character, so I chose another character who seemly did not say something in the story--Lyon.

Lyon loves music, who has the same interest with me.  I cannot symbolize all people who love art or music, but I can understand the feeling of loving music.  Lyon is a simple man.  He can play with uncle Gabriel; he cannot afford his life, but he does not want to make money by carrying rubbish.  Therefore, if I were standing on Lyon's position, how I would do.  As Lyon, I thought, "I come by t my father and ask him for ten dollars, my father will probably give them to me because he should be responsible to me.  My father is not really close to me, and because of that, I lost the support from the father.  My mom adopted me as if she was a single mother, so I hated him for giving up on mother and me.  I can forget about it now because it happened a long time ago and I am an adult.  Moreover, I have to borrow father's money recently."

According to the story's background, I build Lyon's mental activity before the scene happens, then it helps me to feel Lyon's emotion change when he talks to his father.  Lyon should be polite at first because he asks father for dollars, and then when his father criticizes his job, he is agitated because he wants to clarify that music is irreplicable in his heart.  I think at that moment, Lyon is just a little bit emotional because he is so confident about his love that others can not change his mind and disgust his love.  However, when his father mentions the past about raising, I believe that he cannot stand it anymore because it is a scare that never can be healed.  Actually, even if he is furious, he represses the anger because he has to get the ten dollars.

As a result, in the practice, I wanted to show the change of emotion, and I also wanted to show the emotions of both awkwardness and depressed anger.  The change of emotion is easy to perform, but the mixed emotions are hard to perform.  It is like you are both objective and subjective at the same time; you are so furious, but the intelligence tells you to be reasonable.  It is full of conflict, so I decided to exaggerate the feeling of anger instead of the awkwardness when the character asks for money.

I added some rest to the sentences to make the monologue has more layers, then the character can be more solid.  My weakness in the practice is that I did not remember the lines proficiently, and I was so nervous that I stuttered at some points.  On the recording day, I was even more anxious than the practice day, but fortunately, I remember the lines well.  I tried to show Lyon's reactions when he asks for money, but I did not know whether audience felt it.  I should learn the skills about how to show up the complicated feelings by taking some small actions.  I need to improve the expression of the conflicts next time.

My peers' monologues are food.  I like Cassidy's accent.  Even though her voice and passion when she performed are great and amazing, the feature that attracts me the most is her accent.  Troy has accents, and his speaking tone is different than white people.  Every nation has their own accents when they speak English.  Cassidy imitates the accent and tone really well.  I also like Yun's performance.  I cannot point out how he did well, but his performance makes me feel comfortable.  He did not exaggerate the character's figure, but his body language drew the character with a strong personality.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka2JA6_FcFw

Character's Monologue

Character's Monologue From Fences

Character: Lyons 18-19

He is a simple person who pays a lot of passions to music.  He affirms that music is the only thing he likes and the only job he works with, so he can talk the music full of confidence.  However, due to the poverty, he has to ask for ten dollar.  It is kind of a shame that he can not afford his life, and it is a shame that he chooses to borrow ten dollars instead of carrying nobody's rubbish to make money.  Lyon does not realize how hard the life is, so he still thinks a good life can be to do what he likes do only.

Therefore, I think I should act Lyon as a man as a child and an adult both, and I should speak proudly when I talk about the music, but anxiously when I ask for money.

Review of Romeo and Juliet

Review of Romeo and Juliet

Written by William Shakespeare
Director: Raphael Massie
Romeo: Steven Johnson
Juliet: Courtney Jamison
September 1, 2017
Edgerton Park in New Haven at 8 pm

Romeo and Juliet is the masterpiece written by Shakespeare.  On September 1, 2017, the literature was once again brought to the stage at Edgerton Park in New Haven.  We were there at around 7 pm to see the play.  The main actors are Steven Johnson who acts Romeo and Courtney Jamison who is the actress of Juliet.  The director of the play is Raphael Massie.

The play is a romantic tragedy.  It mainly tells about that two people, Romeo and Juliet, fell in love with each other in a party, but the family they belong are in opposition, so the families are doomed to reject the two people’s marriage.  However, true love is not afraid of difficulties, Juliet drinks the special poison that can push a person to death for a few hours and come back to life after hours.  She wants to run away from home with Romeo, so she asks a person to tell the truth to Romeo so that he can meet her when she wakes.  However, Romeo does not receive the information, and he believes Juliet is dead.  He suicides by drinking a real bottle of poison.  He dies next to Juliet, and Juliet sees the situation when she wakes.  Romeo’s death drags Juliet to a deep sorrow, so she decides to go with Romeo by stabbing herself to death.  In the end, the two families reconcile.  The story advocates the power of love.  Love can go beyond the death, and love can bring peace to people, and people who are in love are all brave.  Even though love sometimes can cause death or war, love itself is pure, and it can break every difficulty.

The drama was played in the park in chilly weather.  It is a spacious area to play, which requires all audiences should see the stage.  The stage is a four-floor building, which makes the structure of the stage more complex.  The largest floor is put up upon the grass, which can be the public street or dancing pool of the Capulet.  Two slopes connect the largest floor to the lawn, which can let the actors communicate with audiences.  I like the slopes structure because the slopes can connect the play to audiences when actors run up and run down through the slopes.

The color and style of the costumes are amazing.  Audiences can recognize the characters’ identity by distinguishing the costumes.  People who wear the dark and simple costumes are slaves and servants; people who wear beautiful and colorful clothes are wealthy people.  Distinguishing the two different families by different color is smart.  Capulets wear costumes in cold blue, while Montagues wear the opposite warm red costume.  The color is so different that audience can easily find out their identity.

Music on the stage is the modern music, such as blues, pop and jazz music.  The costumes are similar to ancient time, but the music is used modern music.  Even though the modern music is more popular and more acceptable than western European classical music, it does not seem likely to fit in the background that the story tells.  The modern music can work when the setting happens in the modern world, which means characters are in modern costumes.  The good example is Sherlock Holme in BBC.  However, the music itself is amazing.  The music at the beginning of the story embellishes the sadness that the director wants to tell, and the dance and the music of party successfully push the story to the happiest moment.

 In the play, I like the actor of Nurse.  Nurse is Juliet’s attendant and friend, which means Nurse has more liberty and right speech than other servants, but she is still a servant.  It is difficult to act both casually and cautiously, but the actor of Nurse acts out perfectly.  At the beginning of the story, she laughs a lot with Juliet.  Nurse is Juliet’s good friend, and they keep no secrets from each other.  She can even disturb the conversation between the queen and Juliet.  However, when the story becomes serious, Nurse is struggling whether she should support Juliet or follow queen’s orders.  As a servant, Nurse can change her view according to the circumstance.  One scene is that Juliet’s father asks Juliet to marry a kinsman, but Juliet is not willing to.  Juliet asked Nurse who she should choose, the kinsman or Romeo.  Nurse used to support the love between Juliet and Romeo, but now she suggests to choose the kinsman.  As a friend, she supports Juliet; as a servant, she has to follow orders.

I like the play because the delicate stage arrangement and actors’ acting make the story real and make audiences easy to drop into the plot.  The actors on the stage said every word loudly and clearly.  Most of the time, they exaggerated their emotion by exaggerating their action and aggravating words.  It is the feature of play, and it is easy for the audience to understand the story in a short time.

Monologue

I have a younger cousin, Tina.  She is my cousin, is my friends, and she is also my enemy.  We studied in the same class of the school since we were 3.  Our parents unconsciously would love to put us in a competition, and I am always the loser, so I hated her, and I was jealous of her in my childhood.

Remember one day in the primary school, I was sitting in the chair and staring at her, my cousin.  She was putting the class in order.  Looking up at her face full of confidence, I was so pissed off her everything.  Teachers always praise her in class; Classmates' parents could ignore me and talk to her in appreciations when we walk together; my parents always criticize that I am not good as my cousin...

"Grace, you should follow my order."  My cousin asked me to go somewhere when I was complaining in my heart.  Then, I totally got mad.  I did not answer her and continued staring at her in silence with my anger.  "I say again, you have to get up" my cousin reminded me, and the silence was the only answer.  "Grace... Grace!"  Seeing me did not do anything, my cousin came to me and wanted to drag me out of the classroom.

Then, we got into a fight.  I pushed her away, and she hit the desk.  She wanted to drag the collar, so I bit her hand.  She cried, and it made me realize what the horrible thing I did and what an envy heart I had, so I cried even louder than my cousin with regret.  I cried so loud that my cousin had to comfort me.  Other classmates saw everything and it made us awkward afterward.  We are cousins, even though we really got into too many fights, even though my cousin told me she used to enjoy seeing me get punished by my parents, even though I used to hate her, we know each other the best and we are the closest person to each other.