Portraying Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Act 4, Scenes 1 and 3
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is an epic tale of forbidden love. Juliet’s character goes through a major shift throughout the play, from a naive, innocent girl to a steadfast, strong woman who is willing to do anything for her love. The pinnacle of her despair and love is in act 4 scene 1, with Friar Lawrence. The scene depicts Juliet after she learns she is to be married to Paris, and Romeo has been banished. She runs to the Friar for help, telling him all the horrific things she would rather do than marry Paris and live without Romeo. In the end, Friar Lawrence gives her a vial of potion that would mimic death, and plans to wait with Romeo for her to awake in the tomb. In Act 4 Scene 3, Juliet takes a leap of faith, drinking the potion given to her by Friar Lawrence and hopes she will end up with her love, Romeo. I chose to play Juliet in a combination of these scenes, specifically the argument between Juliet and Friar Lawrence in Act 4 Scene 1, and Juliet’s monologue in Act 4 Scene 3. The language in these two scenes played a major role in my staging and acting. Shakespeare’s use of foreshadowing and dramatic tone allows for a development of Juliet’s inner turmoil and conflict with Friar Lawrence, which I showed onstage with emphasis, body language, and blocking.
Act 4 scene 1 occurs towards the end of the play, very near to Romeo and Juliet’s death. Shakespeare uses foreshadowing to prepare the reader for the depressing future. Shakespeare tells the audience Juliet is going to kill herself when she says “God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands,/ And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal’d,/ Shall be the label to another deed.” (4, 1, 55-57) The “other deed” he writes of is suicide - Juliet literally threatens to kill herself if Friar Lawrence cannot help her get Romeo back. Later, after describing all of the things she would to do harm herself if she has to marry Paris, she says “Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble-/ And I will do it without fear or doubt,/ To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.” (4, 1, 86-89) This line is Shakespeare’s way of informing the reader that Juliet will do anything to be with Romeo. She does not see a life without him. Notice how he writes “unstain’d wife” not unstain’d life. This is a subtle hint that she will not have a life with Romeo. Later on in the play, Juliet takes the vial given to her by Friar Lawrence. She contemplates the possibility that this potion leads to her death, but convinces herself she will live to see Romeo again. In the play, both of those things happen. She sees Romeo again, but this time he is dead, and she kills herself now that she cannot be with him. Shakespeare’s heavy usage of foreshadowing demonstrated Juliet’s inner conflict. Right before this scene, Romeo killed Tybalt and was banished from Verona. She is now stuck between her family and Romeo. However, she is already married to Romeo. When he is banished, she realizes she cannot live without him - as evident in the lines above. In this scene, she makes her final decision to commit to Romeo.
Onstage, I used emphasis in my voice to portray Shakespeare’s foreshadowing of death, and Juliet’s own conflict between her family and Romeo revealed in the scene. Before my partner and I got to staging, we went through every line, carefully reading them out loud on our own and bolding words we wanted to vocally emphasize. Every time death or love was mentioned, I emphasized it, as well as every time Juliet said “Romeo.” These words were foreshadowing what was to come next in the play. “Death” symbolized the suicide of Romeo and Juliet. “Love” was also mentioned a lot, depicting the driving force behind Juliet’s desperation. “Romeo” is the cause of her despair, the reason she kills herself, and her true love. These words show Juliet’s dismal future, when her “love” to “Romeo” leads to her “death.” An example of this came later in the scene, during my monologue. Right before I drank the potion, I said “Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.” (4, 3, 58). I put emphasis on Romeo’s name, showing the audience I drank the potion so I could see him again. This showed Juliet’s dedication to Romeo and the resolve of the conflict she faced between family and love, and foreshadowed that the next time she saw him, she would face the consequences of her potion. By saying words like “death,” “love,” and “Romeo” with more emphasis, the audience gained an understanding of major themes that show up later in the show, and Juliet as a character.
In Shakespeare’s text, there is further development of Juliet’s character. Shakespeare exposes another conflict she faces, between herself and Friar Lawrence. He uses vivid language and description to show the emotion from Juliet in this disagreement, and create a dramatic tone in the scene. One example of this is Juliet’s line “Twixt my extremes, and me this bloody knife/shall play the umpire” (4, 1, 62-63) Shakespeare writes these lines with descriptive and dramatic verbs and adjectives, particularly in the words “Twixt” and “Bloody.” He could have simply written “If you do not help me I will kill myself,” but he chooses strong language to make it vivid and dramatic. This darkens the tone of the scene. It also reveals Juliet’s seriousness in her argument with Friar Lawrence. The words “Twixt” and “Bloody” also reveal Juliet’s intense emotions, especially Her desperation is shown. However, there are more emotions in this scene than just “desperation. One of these is fear. She even describes her fear of being trapped in the vault as “shall I not be distraught,/ Environed with all these hideous fears?” (4, 3, 49-50) The phrase “hideous fear” here is another example of Shakespeare’s excessively dramatic language, because the word “hideous” adds another level of depth to her dread. Shakespeare’s use of strong verbs and adjectives with descriptive qualities allows the reader to see new emotions in Juliet and the conflict between Juliet and Friar Lawrence.
This dramatic language and array of emotions was difficult to handle when performing this scene. As an actor, portraying all of these emotions can be very difficult. I started by sorting out what emotions she was feeling, and when. I color-coded my script with 11 main emotions. In the beginning, there was a lot of suicidal thoughts and sadness. The middle was mostly desperation, and the end had a lot of flipping between anger and anxiety. I had to find a way to portray all of those emotions with a distinct difference. This was the most difficult part of the scene. I decided to use blocking and body language to show these feelings to the audience. In the beginning of the scene, Friar Lawrence tries to comfort Juliet by putting his hand on her shoulder. Right after his attempt, Juliet has the line “Tell me not, friar, that thou hears’t of this,” On my script, I decided this line was full of sadness and anger. To show this, I pushed Friar Lawrence’s hand away and backed away from him, maintaining eye contact. This action shows Juliet’s conflict with Friar Lawrence. Pushing him off my shoulder made it clear that Juliet did not want to be comforted, she wanted a solution to the problem. I kept looking at him because this scene is one of the first times Juliet gets comfortable with herself, and wanted to show the new assertiveness she possessed. Body language, specifically eye contact, and blocking helped me show Juliet’s conflict with Friar Lawrence on stage.
Body language and blocking also helped me show Juliet’s sorrow, hopelessness and hopefulness in the scene. I wanted a contrast between her anger when Friar tries to console her, her loss of hope when he suggests she go home and marry Romeo, and her excitement when he finally proposes a solution. I achieved this with levels and eye contact. When Friar Lawrence tells Juliet to “Go home, be merry give consent/ To marry Paris.” (4, 1, 89-90) He is actually leading into a plan for her to fake her death. However to Juliet, it sounds like he is going to tell her to give up on Romeo. In this moment, I chose to sit down and put my head in my hands. By putting my head in my hands, I was avoiding eye contact. This motion was the exact opposite from the angry Juliet the audience met in the beginning of the scene. I created more contrast later in the scene, when Friar Lawrence goes to give Juliet the bottle. I stood and grabbed the bottle quickly with the line “Give me, give me! O, tell me not of fear!” (4, 1, 121). To the audience, Juliet’s change in levels align with a change of mindset from hopeless to hopeful.
I wanted to use body language, blocking and emphasis to portray Juliet’s emotions and inner conflict, as well as her disagreement with Friar Lawrence. However, some of this was missing in my actual performance. There were inconsistencies with my body language. For example, I continued to look away during my monologue about all the horrible things Juliet would do rather than marry Paris. I wanted to use eye contact as a reference point for her emotions, and this section of the scene was about anger and desperation, similar to the beginning. Since I kept looking at Friar Lawrence in the beginning, and looked away when I lost hope, looking away during this line implied a loss of hope when I actually wanted to portray anger and a search for hope. Despite this, some other aspects of the performance were very well done. My facial expressions demonstrated a full range of emotions, and sitting down at the end made the monologue very intimate.
Act 4 Scenes 1 and 3 were crucial moments in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. His usage of foreshadowing and dramatic tone allowed for a complex character of Juliet. It was difficult to capture these aspects while portraying her onstage. Using vocal emphasis, body language, and blocking, I was able to capture Juliet as a character. I demonstrated her inner conflict, wide range of emotions, and tension with Friar Lawrence in the scene. Combined, these aspects of Romeo and Juliet showed a changing character in love with Romeo, who would do anything to be with him.
(Note: Will be double spaced, took up too much space on blogger to double space)
