video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCQN63jXFI&feature=youtu.be

First Draft

Write coursework draft 1

Romeo and Juliet project

Talking about the scene&character:

This scene starts in the morning as Romeo has just left the balcony. And Lady Capulet comes to Juliet to tell her that she has to marry Paris, a “young noble gentlemen” whom Juliet does not like at all.  Juliet refuses to marry, and then Lord Capulet comes in, and he is extremely angry with Juliet’s rebellion. 

I performed Juliet in this scene whose emotions changed a lot through line to line. At first, Juliet should show how much she missed Romeo. And it was a irony when she told Lady Capulet her desire to revenge for her cousin’s death, and she would kill Romeo in person. Only herself and audiences know the truth, so it is very important to make her sound like foreshadowing which is like a little girl holds a secret lying to her parents. Mental activities should be shown in my body languages and intonation. And then when Juliet knows that she has to have a second marriage with Paris, she is shocked, and then the only thing she wants to do is to cancel this inappropriate marriage. 

About staging&costume:

For Juliet, she is a pure and naive girl who has never got in touch with a man and never tasted the feeling of in love. So I choose white for the main color of her dress. And in her deep soul she is strong for love and does not afraid of death or power stronger than her, so I draw a tattoo on my right hand to show this kind of rebellion feeling. The tattoo is a deep red rose which both symbolize the charming love and bloody death. 

In Juliet’s bedroom, there is a bed located at up stage, and a door on the right stage. The balcony is facing the audiences at down stage. And there is a shelf next to the bed. 

My own performance:

My emotions were full and strong. When I said “ O fortune, fortune, all men call thee fickle.” and “ For then I hope, thou wilt not keep him long but send him back.” I used affectionate voice, and I prolong and slow down my talking speed to show how much I missed my Romeo. Also, I knitted my brow and put my hands in front of my chest. When I talked with Lady Capulet about killing Romeo, I told my mind to the audiences, “villain, that he be many miles asunder. God pardon him! I do, with all my heart.” I sighed to show that my heart was suffering of keep that harsh secret. I even could not tell my own parents. And then I turned back to the Lady Capulet. “ madam, from the reach of these my hands, would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.” I clenched my fist and changed to strong and determined voice for proving my position to my mother. But I was still sitting on the bed at this time which indicate that my position was not that “true”. And then, in order to reach my goal--come to Romeo, I told Lady Capulet I want to carry out the mission of poisoning Romeo by myself, and it is the only way which can make me feel satisfied, and I stood up at this moment. When Lord Capulet came in, I looked down to the ground to show my modest and fearfulness, but when he forced me to marry Paris, if not he would drive me away, which light up the rebellion fire in my mind. I twisted the edge of my dress to show my emotions to audiences that I was not giving in. Under this great pressure, I kneeled down to beg Lord Capulet, and actually, I stood still for a second and walked back a few steps before I kneeled down. This was a feeling of formal which means that I was really meant to beg Lord Capulet to change his mind, and my desire was very strong. When Lord Capulet was blamed me, I stared at his eyes with angry and helpless, so I bited my lips. 

Cooperate with partners:

Many eye contacts with partners were useful and necessary. Since we practiced many times, our lines were remembered pretty well. So we can recited our lines fluently and naturally. In order to make the scene look reliable, we associated partners in many different ways. For example, I stood up and walked to the door when Lady Capulet came in. And she touched my should when she was trying to cheer me up because she thought I was gloomy and sad for my cousin’s death. One other example is when I heard Lady Capulet would say cheerful things, I held her hands to show that I really wanted to hear some happy things.  


Experience gained:

Put myself into the character, Juliet is the daughter of a rich noble man, so she should be well-educated and well-behaved. Some of my body languages were over exaggerated which means the emotions went beyond my character, and this probably made the character seem unrealistic. Besides, we should not only memorize the lines but also understand it, so that we can know how when and why do those certain lines out, and this helps our performance a lot. Feeling of character, feeling of stage can make me become a trained and experienced actor. 

Review of Bushnell

Review of Bushnell

Warriors Don’t Cry November 16th

School field trip to the Bushnell, a solo show of a black woman produced by Jessica Maria Kight, an energetic and powerful actor. The story starts at “the center of a violent civil rights conflict” (Melba Pattillo Beals) and presents Melba’s high school memory to the audiences. Also, elements such as violent, racism and segregation are completely showed.  

As a liter and Perf IB student, I not only focused on the meaning of the play but also learnt from the actor herself. Technically, this show contains a very strong political taste in order to emphasis the segregation between the blacks and the whites at that specific time period; how did this violet and non-equality grew in the school where supposed to be a pure and peaceful place. White people looked down to those black people and treated them as slaves and beasts. Rights and respectfulness did not belong to the blacks at all. As both teachers and students teased Melba, she was suffering an affront. 

Maira, the performer of the show, completed the various emotions of different characters all herself--Melba, grandma, teachers and so many others. Different character have different personalities, but Maira separated them successfully and clearly brought them to audiences. When she was Melba, she stood still, looked straight forward and rise her voice which made her sound like a bright young girl; when she was grandma, she bended down, put one hand on her back and used low and shaking voice to pretend she was a old old lady; when she was teacher, she stood pretentiously crossing her legs to show the edges and curves of her body and used waving voice to show how scornful she was. Because of Maira’s performing skills, the play was full of ups and downs instead of boring. There was no stage changing, no other actor, so the only way for her to caught audiences’ attention was her acting skills. When I think back, I can always remember how powerful she was. 

Learning from this play, “n word” was ear-piercing. In order to be accurate and truthful, this word was used a lot. Was racism be solved completely? I believe it is still there. Not only for black and white. 

Warriors Don't Cry

Characters list:

Melba Patillo Beals, Grandma India, Link, Conrad Patillo

Lois Patillo, Will Patillo, Kelli Beals, Virgil Blossom, Minnijean Brown, Nana Healey, Mrs. Higgenbottom , Andy, Mrs. C. Daisy Bates, General Clinger, Vince, Bill Clinton

Plots

Warriors Don’t Cry begins when Melba and eight other black men and women in their forties return to their home state of Arkansas to meet the then-governor, Bill Clinton. Melba, the narrator and author, explains that the group, called the Little Rock Nine, is visiting Central High School in Little Rock. As teenagers in 1957, the nine of them were the first African-American students to be integrated into the school.

When Melba is twelve years old, the Supreme Court rules that separate schools for whites are illegal, a ruling called Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In the year after the ruling, Melba sees very little change in segregation. She is still at an all-black high school, but she and sixteen other black students sign up to attend the white school.

Because of the threat of violence, the number of black students who will participate in the integration is decreased from seventeen to nine. Several times in the few days before school is supposed to start, lawsuits are filed that threaten to stop the nine students. Governor Faubus declares that he is going to send the Arkansas National Guard to the high school, though he does not say whether they are there to protect the nine or to stop them from entering the school. Grandma India begins to stay awake at night with a shotgun near her. Finally, a few days after school has started, federal court judge Ronald Davies orders that the students be allowed to attend.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/warriorsdontcry/summary.html

Scene Reflection

One thing I noticed is when I was actually on stage performing the scene, some new emotions and ideas came up suddenly, so our record version is very different with our practicing. In order to list my advantages and disadvantages clearly, I separate them into two paragraphs below. 

 Since I am not a native English speaker, and I was a little bit nervous when we filmed, my pronunciation was really weird. I felt sick about that. Besides, I was so not like Juliet which means I still did fully put myself into my character, and I could not bear it any more. For example, when I set on the bed talking with Lady Capulet, my legs were wide open, and my sitting poster had nothing to do with graceful. I do not think the daughter from a rich noble man sat like I did. If I could try again, I must correct my behavior. Besides, my talking speed of the part I talked about I would poison Romeo myself was a little bit too fast, since this part was talking about a plan, and it was foreshadowing, so I need to speak slowly and strong. Near the ending, I started sobbing too late. In my opinion, I shall start crying as soon as Lord Capulet’s second long monolog starts. 

 Actually, I can hear myself clearly in the video due to I raise my voice, and this is an improvement. I am not surprised about that because I practiced it so many times, and I was very familiar with my lines, so I was confident enough to speak them out loud. The other thing is, I paid much attention on my facial expressions and body languages, and I think I did it pretty well. For example, when I said, “Villain that he be many miles asunder, god pardon him! I do, with all my heart. And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.”  I sighed first, and then I winkled my eye brows, and looked down to the ground in order to show my mind was very depressed, struggling and how hard I missed Romeo. And also added an action which I never thought about before was shaking head when I said, “Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo.” Because I did try this detail before during practices, the linking of my lines and Lady Capulet’s lines cannot match. However, when I added that little head-shaking, the conversation seemed much reliable. I think I controlled my attitude toward Lord Capulet was quite good at first. When “she” entered, I took a step back and nodded my head in order to show modest. And also when “she” blamed me, I squeezed the edge of my sweater (I mentioned I should do that in my pervious blog), and it worked. This detail showed Juliet’s emotions that she wanted to rebel, since she did nto want to obey her parents to marry Paris. Also I kind of like the part where I walked a part a little bit and hesitated before I kneeled down because Juliet was thinking how she can change her parents’ mind to cancel this marriage, and the first solution she came up with was to begging her father. The block of lines, hesitated, showed her thinking process. This was one more good thing. I shook Lady Capulet’s hands when I was begging her, and it looked like that was how Juliet will beg her mother.

 (After all, I think we did not bad. I need to thank my partners, and apologize for all the mistakes I made. )

The Dead review

“The world… is like the surface of a frozen lake. We walk along, we slip; we try to keep our balance and not to fall. One day there’s a crack, and so we learn that underneath us is-an unimaginable depth.”  

---James Joyce “The Dead”

 The story happens during a Christmas home party. Family members and friends gather together singing, drinking and dancing. Memories and stories are told by different people. Since I am doing Romeo and Juliet project recently, and I get stuck on how to put myself into the character, so I mainly focused on actors acting skills. Actually, I learnt a lot from those professional actors. 

 Start from the staging. The staging is very interesting and surprising this time because they put audiences’ seats around the stage, and there is no clearly boundary between the stage and audiences area. This new change make the distance between audiences and actors become much closer, and in fact I was very excited and impressed by this change. When Gabriel Conroy came to our side and spoke, I felt like he was close enough to touch which gave me an amazing feeling. Those characters are alive! It is like the scene with origin staging is 2 dimensions; however, the new staging makes the scene become to 3 dimensions. 

 Talking about the characters, they all have very different and personalities. One thing I learnt from them specifically is they are good at responding to each other. When Aunt Julia and Aunt Kate are singing, all other listeners wave their heads or clap their hands naturally following the music, they are not just sitting or standing still without and reactions which make me think of my own character. Besides, take Aunt Kate as an example, when she speaks the first time, she uses her finger pointing and talks with fast speed and trembling voice. Because of these, she looks a lot like an old white woman, and audiences can easily recognize her identity. 

Log #3

This was our last practice week, so we took it really serious. Since I have already memorized the script, there was another problem came up which was I am not good at put myself into the character. This was a general problem there are three situations under it. (Also the drama “The dead” inspired me a lot because I focused on every character’s acting when I saw the play. So I learnt from them.) 

First, always focus on my lines, and the most important thing in my head is to speak out all my lines correctly. Because of this, my voice volume is very small. I was not confident enough to raise my volume; as a result, audiences could not hear me clearly sometimes. Actually, this problem is very easy to solve. Practice again and again to make sure I can recite every single line without thinking. I usually practice with Nancy after class and after school, and I am quite sure that I improved a lot. 

 Second, I cannot always react to my partners’ lines properly. For example, Lord Capulet has a very long monolog which is blaming Juliet. When we went through this part, I just kneeled down without any reactions. And it was really unrealistic. It seemed like what Lord Capulet said was none of my business. My partner told me that I need to really imagine that my parents force me to marry with someone I do not like, and if I refuse I would be throw to the street and die. Should I cry? Should I make decisions and rebel them? It is really hard to imagine because I am lack of experiences. I need to reflect my mental activities through my tiny body languages. Such as cry, bite my lips, scratch the ground, squeeze the edge of my dress are all good choices. Facial expressions are also important to show my character’s emotions. 

 Three, I did not act like Juliet. My actions, intonation and attitude are not very Juliet’s style. Since we used the old style script that means we should not modernize the performance also. I should act like a rich noble man’s daughter during Shakespeare’s time, so I need to stay gentle and graceful even though when I am mad. I show let audiences recognize that I am Juliet according to my actions rather than from the plots. If I am reach this goal that would be wonderful. I need to pay attention to every single detail just to make my reactions as reliable as possible. 

 As a conclusion, in order to make our performance successful, we need to not only to focus on myself, but also cooperate with my partners. Their acting is very nice and professional. I afraid I would mess up when we record our final draft. However, the only thing I can do is to improve myself by practicing as much as can, keeping thinking all the time, staying in the character and responding to others properly. I believe we can finish this project perfectly.   

Drama Tonight !!!!!!

performance Log 2

Log 2 

As an actor, I improved a lot this week because I not only can recite my script, but also know about my disadvantages on controlling emotions and speaking speed. 

 On Monday (10.31), we first ran through our scene in front of the whole class, which gave me the feelings of “on stage” and “performing”. More than just practiced the script one time, I was able to see other groups’ performance, and actually, they inspired me a lot. For example, I learnt from Sam that how to add some actions with emotions to link my lines and also how to use the materials on the stage properly. And the most important thing was I received many useful advises and feedback from my classmates which let me know where I should improve. I list some of them below.

* Speak more loudly and slowly. 

* Solidifying our movements, so they are not awkward (Julia). 

* Enrich Juliet’s emotions more than just yelling and angry(Sam&Julia) 

* Practice the pronunciation more (Kathleen) 

* Make some reactions when Lord Capulet is blaming Juliet (Ms. Guarino) 

After performing, I read those feedbacks carefully and remember them in my mind. They helped me a lot. 

 And then on Wednesday (11.2) I analyzed the emotions of the scripts in class. To my surprise, there are too many different emotions in this scene of Juliet which made me run out of colors to code them. So I realized that I need to be emotional and always be ready to change my emotions during the scene. This is a wise way to make my acting reliable and interesting. By this time, I understood more about my character, Juliet. I found of the answers why she should be sad of frustrated in a certain time. For example, when Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she needs to marry Paris on Thursday, Juliet should be shocked at first rather than just angry. The anger needs time to process. Every emotion comes up because of some certain reasons. They are not just coming from nowhere. 

 During the following days, I spent a lot of time on memorizing my script, and it is kind of difficult for me because Juliet’s lines are always in between Lady Capulet and Lord Capulet, so it is hard to remember its order sometimes. I practiced writing them down many times and corrected them by myself. Besides, I also recorded them in my phone and played them again and again in the morning or any other time when I am free. After school, I sometimes practiced reciting the script with Nancy because she is my partner—Lady Capulet. We checked each others’ lines, and it really is a good way to remember the scripts. Since I paid enough time, I finally can remember them right now.

 Because memorize the lines is the first necessary step, I am pretty sure that I am on the way of performing my character well. The next goal is to add more actions, correct my pronunciation and be familiar with the staging. 

emotions