Unit 3: Romey & J (Blog 6)

In class today, we performed our final assessment scene (Act 3 scene 5). I played Juliet and Farah played Lady Capule. You can find a link to Farah's blog here. Last week, we performed our rough draft of the scene.

Rough Draft
I think that I did do a significant amount of practice both at home and in class on Wednesdays. I asked my mother to help me learn my lines and to help me with the vocal emotions in the scene. I went over the lines in my head many times so that I would not forget any of my lines when it came to performing the rough draft. 

I think that the blocking of the scene was good but my character emotions need work. This is because I got feedback from Ms Kimey saying that it was what needed working on. Farah needed to learn her lines since she was reading off of the script and I was not. We also needed to work on running smoothly through our lines since it did not sound natural to me. I think that the audience understood what the scene was about but did not understand the emotions which is the main thing that needed working on. I do think the audience understood the language because none of them looked very confused. 

To improve my performance for the final performance, which was being graded, I worked extensively on my character emotion and improved the blocking of our scene. Farah learned the gist of her lines so she could use the script as just a prompt. This is the feedback I got from Ms Kimey for the rough draft performance:

You lines at the beginning need more confusion, emotion etc.
You are overwrought with emotion-you've been crying ENDLESSLY and need to be weak at the beginning of piece (to convince parents) so much that you ultimately "die" of grief.
Change reaction to "behold him ... dead" to an easier, less comical recover
Desperate questioning and begging - not that strong at "I will not marry"
More sadness, weakness and desperation
Excellent job with lines, work on character emotion

Final Draft
i think that our final draft was so much better that our rough draft. This is because my lines had more emotion in them and Farah learnt some of her lines. I used all of my feedback to improve my performance because I really wanted to do well on our final assessment of the year. Everything that Ms Kimey told me to do in my feedback, I tried to apply as much as I could to the performance. There was more emotion in my lines and it was less "comedic". I think our performance greatly improved from before.

I do think the audience understood what was going on in the scene even better this time because we tried to speak clearer so that the audience could hear and process what we were saying more easily. Also, I think that the Shakespearean language was clear and people could make out what we were saying. The emotions were also clearer because we tried as best we could to put more emotion into our movements and our voices. 
My feedback was:

Better sadness this time
In the future, pack more sub-textual understanding in lines-these are so rich with double meanings throughout
Perhaps rise on "Madam if you could find but a man"
Good inflection on "What joyful tidings" bit

Final Reflection
I have a lot of new understanding regarding Shakespearean theater and Romeo and Juliet. One new understanding I have is that Shakespeare would make up a lot of words for his plays. The audience members wouldn't have been able to understand the actors on stage if they didn't project and articulate their words properly The emotion of a line really helps the audience to understand what is going on. I learnt that from performing my final assessment. 

I have a new found appreciation for actors who perform Shakespeare in modern times now because, I know how difficult it is to memorize lines, let alone Shakespearean language! You have to put a lot of emotion into lines for audience members to understand and also have to exaggerate a lot. They deserve a lot pf respect for being able to perform Shakespeare well!

One acting skill that I learnt in this unit is putting emotion into lines and movements. Another skill I learnt is inflection which is changing my voice to suit an emotion. I had to do this a lot in my scene as I went from sad to pleading/begging. In Shakespeare, time in class is not enough to rehearse. I learnt that I have to do a lot of practice at home to get the performance right which I did and it went very well

Bye!  xxx

Unit 3: Romey & J (Blog 5)

For our summative assessment, we are doing a scene from the play Romeo and Juliette by William Shakespeare. I have chosen o do my scene with Farah Moreel. You can find a link to her blog here. We have chosen Act 3 Scene 5. I play Juliette and Farah plays Lady Capulet. We have to mark our script and upload pictures of them. The annotations include the stage set up and also stage directions. I have marked what each line is portraying, costume choices, lighting/technical choices and the content of the line.

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In this scene, Juliette is overcome with emotions for her husband Romeo, who has been banished, and her Cousin Tybalt, who was killed by Romeo. She is upset and weak from endless crying over both of them. 

My movements are very slow and sad and I am mostly sitting down on my bed because I am tired. I voice is quite high pitched as Juliette has a high voice but at times it is low to exaggerate the sadness that Juliette is feeling. I speak quite slowly for most lines again to show I am tired. Some lines are delivered quick like "Madam, in happy time, what day is that?" because Juliette is worried and also confused about what is going on. My mood changes slightly when I hear about the marriage but Juliette is more trying to convince her mother than being a stroppy teenager.

(To Ms Kimey. If the pictures aren't clear enough, please tell me and I will show you my script in class.)

Bye now! xxx :)

-K