Performance Log #1 (10/13 - 10/27)

10/13

Kevin and I will be performing Act 4 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet, combined with some parts of Act 4 Scene 3. I am Juliet, he is Friar Lawrence. We added scene 3 because Juliet did not have enough lines in scene 1 alone. I also think it is an emotional scene that will allow me, as Juliet, to really develop a character and work with that. We also cut out Paris in scene 1, because we only have two actors. Instead we are just going to start with Juliet asking Friar Lawrence if he has time alone.

10/19

Today I posted the first of many Romeo and Juliet scripts with some rough planning on the bottom. Kevin and I went through every line, carefully reading them outloud on our own and bolding words we wanted to emphasize. I know this will help me later, as I have to write a detailed analysis. As an actor, recognizing words to emphasize can help me on stage and off stage, while working on character development. On stage, I know what words matter and need to be extra clear to the audience. When developing my portrayal of Juliet, I have to understand what matters to her in the scene, and I can do that through emphasis. It is also important to note that this was a very rough, first draft of emphasis. I have to try out many meanings and usage of the language, to see what fits best and where I feel most comfortable.

10/26

For the first time, Kevin and I went through the script reading the lines in character. I noticed that there is some struggle with the language, so I want to help him with that when we have more time. I also noticed that there are a couple of places where I need to discover my motivation. We also talked about some costuming and staging ideas, but we were not in the black box so nothing is solidified. Right now, we are talking about using the stage left door for Juliet to knock on and later beg him to shut, and having the conflict when Juliet pulls up a knife center stage. In terms of costuming, I think all black or nice clothing should do the trick - we don’t need period clothing. I do hope Juliet can be in something flowy and preferably not white, because she is feminine but no longer innocent.

10/27

We finally got into the black box! We changed the staging quite a bit - now all the action is taking place against the stage left wall, and I am entering next to the stage. We found that in the beginning, Juliet is not given enough time to change from being fake (for Paris) to being distraught. To remedy this, we added a line that makes it clear Friar Lawrence is talking to somebody else in the back room, and therefore I have a reason to be fake and sweet to Friar Lawrence and then turn around and act upset and desperate once he leaves. This line is “My lord, we must entreat this time alone.” Kevin says it to an unseen person, offstage. I can now further my character development to show the difference between Juliet in front of others and in private. We then tried to run the scene again, but I quickly noticed an issue with our motivation. Because the language is slightly confusing, sometimes Kevin and I don’t know what we mean when we say something and say it in a way that does not make sense. We decided to go through the scene, line by line, and “translate” it into something we can understand. This lets both of us add intent and motivation to every line.

Portraying Desperation and the Search for Love

My scene combines Act 4 Scene 1, when Juliet gets the vial of potion from Friar Lawrence, and Act 4 Scene 3, when she takes the vial. I play Juliet. When the play begins, Juliet is very timid and obedient. At this point, she has developed into a headstrong woman and wife in love. This change was brought upon by her introduction to Romeo, her love, then overcoming differences in family to be together. She lives in a very confusing world, where her family is feuding for seemingly no reason, and she is under complete control of her parents - until this scene. She shows up to Friar Lawrence alone, and gets privacy with him for the first time in the play. As an actor, I have to show this change - even in one scene. I have to keep in mind that being alone is new for her, and she is just finding her ground. I can’t show her extremely confident, but she has to stand her own ground. This is especially evident when I consider taking the potion - she is not entirely confident on her own ability to go through with this plan, and keeps imagining what can go wrong.

Juliet takes the potion because she loves Romeo and does not want to marry Paris. She knows she will have to marry him - the wedding is scheduled for Thursday. She understands that if she does not do something drastic, her life will be unhappy and she will be forever at the mercy of her parents and Paris. Therefore, Juliet’s motivation in this scene is to finally stand up for herself and her love. It is her only choice, and she has now become desperate. She is willing to take some drastic measures to achieve this goal, threatening to kill herself and saying she wishes to die. When acting in this scene, I have to show that desperation. One way I can achieve that is by relying on past memory, events, or research. I personally have never been so desperate that I would  commit suicide, but clearly I will have to my research, like Stella Adler encourages.

To achieve Juliet’s motivation in this scene, I will enter nervous and prepared to ask for help, then allow my emotions to escalate. When Friar tells me he knows about my future marriage to Paris, I have to show how upset and heartbroken Juliet is. Then when he offers a alternative, I have to be excited to take it and ready to change something about my life. Then, I ask him to leave - and Juliet is left alone with her thoughts. This is when a small part of that timid and shy Juliet comes back, and I have to show the audience that she hasn’t lost tht yet. By the end of that speech, I will have accepted my fate. This acceptance comes from her love for Romeo. Juliet remembers why she is putting herself through all of this, and instantly gets that confidence back.

Juliet, Uta Hagen and Stella Adler - #squadgoals

To portray Juliet in my scene, I would like to try Uta Hagen’s method of acting. Juliet faces a lot of tough emotional changes in this scene, and Uta Hagen emphasized focusing on those moments and analyzing them. One of the things I struggle with in acting is staying in the moment - I often have trouble forgetting the audience is there. When Julia presented Uta Hagen, she said her method can allow the actor to do that. Perhaps I could improve that ability. I am also interested in Stella Adler’s approach of using real world experiences to shape your acting. This is different from Stanislavsky, which encourages instinct - I don't see that working in this scene, because it's too short and the emotion comes from before this scene. I need to relate it to my life to successfully portray the strong emotions Juliet is feeling.

Stella Adler

• Born in 1901 in NYC
• 18 years old - travelled around the world in the Yiddish theater and performing Vaudeville
• Comical and extravagant shows, very energetic
• 1931 - met Harold Clurman, second husband, and joined his "Group Theater"
• Believed in theater that interacts with the soul
• Important topics through theater
• Left in 1937
• Constantin Stanislavsky
• Method acting
• Studied with him
• Brought his ideas to America
• 1949 - started Stella Adler Studio of Acting with Joanne Linville (Now in NYC and LA)
• Combination of Yiddish Theater, Broadway, Hollywood, and Stanislavsky
• Serious theater
• "The theater exists 99% on the imagination"
• Actor must care abut emotion in script
• Look for implied messages
• "Act with your soul. That's why you all want to be actors, because your souls are not used up by life."
• More to it than memorizing lines

1. Development of independent actors
1. Acting is reliant on your soul
2. How you develop as a person influences how well you can develop as a character
3. INDEPENDENT actors - directors don't make decisions
1. "Your talent is your choice"
2. The power of the imagination
1. A play is a living experience - always changing
2. Use imagination to access full motivation of character 
1. More than just what is conveyed in the script (immediate past)
3. The importance of action
1. Doing, not feeling
2. Interact with others through action
1. All the audience can see
3. Convey emotion THROUGH action
4. Script interpretation
1. Script does not belong to author
1. Does not have a fixed meaning
2. Should be used as a rough basis
2. "living" script
1. Different interpretations are possible
1. Different messages, same script
3. "The play is not in the words, it's in you"
4. Understand there is more to a play than just the written script
1. World of the play
5. The cultivation of rich humanity
1. All an actor has is his brain and body
1. Call upon brain and body of character
2. Connect with the entire world to enrich your own brain and body
1. Allows you to make better connections with your character

Sources:

www.stellaadler.com/about/core-beliefs/

www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/stella-adler-about-stella-adler/526

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/stella_adler

Romeo and Juliet Act 4 Scene 1, planning #1

ACT IV
SCENE I. Friar Laurence's cell.

JULIET
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAURENCE
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.

JULIET
O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!

FRIAR LAURENCE
Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this county.

JULIET
Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
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,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAURENCE
Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution.
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That copest with death himself to scape from it:
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.

JULIET
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
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.

FRIAR LAURENCE
Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

JULIET
Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

FRIAR LAURENCE
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

JULIET
Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father!
Farewell!

God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,

That almost freezes up the heat of life:

I needs must act alone. Come, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?

Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?

No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

What if it be a poison, which the friar

Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,

Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,

Because he married me before to Romeo?

I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,

For he hath still been tried a holy man.

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!

Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night,

Together with the terror of the place,

O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,

Environed with all these hideous fears?

Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

Costuming:

Juliet:

• Not white - no longer pure
• Simple

Friar:

• Priest Robes
• Brown?

Props

• Knife

Setting

• Plants
• Pews
• Private office?
• Confrontation should take place center stage
• Enter from upstage entrances - which one?

Bold = Emphasis (subject to change)