First Draft

First Draft

A famous play written by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, which is a combination of both love and hate. It talks about the feuds between two families are settled down by two star-crossed lovers --- Romeo and Juliet. This thrilling play has inspired audiences for decades. Juliet, a dramatic character in Romeo and Juliet, changes a lot through her rebellion against her destiny encouraged by Romeo's love; in order to perform Juliet, I focused body language and facial expression to comprehensively portray her as emotional and variable as a person in the real world. 

In Act 3 scene 5,  Juliet has just said goodbye to her banished husband, Romeo. Then Lord Capulet and Lady Capulet who are completely in the dark about their daughter’s secret marriage, forced Juliet to marry Paris. Because of this dramatic setting, Juliet shows her rebellion against the strong power and the assigned destiny. Moreover, this is a turning point of Juliet’s personalities from fragile to staunch, naive to intrepid, and all of these tremendous changes are driven from the love given by Romeo. At the beginning, there is a reputation of “f” sound in Juliet’s line: “be fickle, fortune. For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, but send him back”. Since this sound is like a preying rhyme, it passes a very strong willing that she wishes her Romeo could come back. When Lady Capulet comes in, Juliet holds her true face back immediately because her mother is not on her side. And it is an irony that she tells Lady Capulet her desire to revenge for Tybalt’s death and to kill Romeo in person. Every word spoken out of her mouth actually is foreshadowing which is like a little girl holds a huge secret lying to her parents. However, it is extremely cruel for Juliet to twist the love into hate just for hoodwinking her parents, “O how my heart abhors to hear him named, and cannot come to him, to wreak the love I pore my cousin, upon his body that slaughter’d him!” Only Juliet herself knows that she is saying she wants to take any chance to meet Romeo again, and she cannot bear the taste of miss any more. When Lord Capulet’s parts are added in, the clash reaches its climax and finally break out in Juliet’s mind. The conflicts between her lover and her family is torturing this little girl which pushes her to make a step to shake off her shackles. As a result, These two strong emotions collide which change Juliet completely. The scene I chose in which Juliet stands under the great pressure and starts to change mentally which was the embryonic beginning of her rebellion. 

I, as Juliet, long for my husband Romeo, and when he left, the feeling of loss tore my heart into pieces. Therefore, I used affectionate voice, prolonged content words, and slowed down my talking speed to show how much I missed my Romeo. Also, I used knitting my brows and holding my hands in front of my chest these kinds of body languages to enhance my character’s emotions. And It came out nicely that I made my acting tally with the actions Juliet supposed to have. Then before talking about slaughtering Romeo, I clarified my mind to the audiences, “villain, that he be many miles asunder.”I sighed deeply and looked up to aside half closing my eyes to show that I was worrying about Romeo’s security and circumstance; “God pardon him! I do, with all my heart”, I suddenly opened my eyes and raise up my left hand upon the sky which is the God’s position; then I put the hand on my heart and my fingers slowly clenched the cloth while I was saying “yet, no man like he doth grieve my heart” to emphasis how terrible my heart was suffering in silence for hate the person I love and conserve this harsh secret in mind. At this time, Lady Capulet told me I had to marry Paris whom I did not like at all, so I was hit by this shock which felt like as if a knife were piercing my heart. In order to portray that I slightly stepped my feet with my shaking legs, shook my head and came closer to Lady Capulet when I said “I will not marry yet”, also, I rise my voice and talked quickly for those “if I do, I swear, it shall be Romeo” lines to show that I was extremely determined when I rejected to betray Romeo, and no one could change my mind even they are my parents; then there was a subtle but important detail which was I hesitated for a second before I added “whom you know I hate”. For this part, I, as Juliet, were thinking about whether I should just telling Lady Capulet the truth to cancel inappropriate marriage; however, I was too afraid thus I was under their control for decades; although my mind was determined for love, I still could not get over the obstacle. In order to reflect this mental activities, I compressed my lips several times and show a bitter face to the audiences. Then Lord Capulet came in and forced me to accept this marriage, but I still did not give in. I twisted the edge of my dress and looked him in his eyes unshakeably telling him that I could not obey this time. This deadlock reaches the limit of both me and Lord Capulet’s patiences.Under this great pressure, I kneeled down to beg Lord Capulet, and actually, I stood still for a second and walked back few steps before I kneeled down, and these created a feeling of formal which indicates that I was really meant to beg Lord Capulet to change his mind, for my desire was strong enough to support me to do so.

For me, every character is like a container, and as a actor, I need to shape myself first in order to fit the shape of the container perfectly. Juliet is like a long neck flask, delicate and graceful. And I did a good job on imitating her emotions by putting myself into the situation she is facing, following the decisions she made and taking the consequences of her decisions. However, the part I still need to improve is learning Juliet’s way of talking and Juliet style’s actions. Since Juliet grows up in a rich and strict family, she must be cultivated and poised, but in my performance I added too many arms and legs’ movements which means I did not act as steady as Juliet supposed to be. 

The amazing thing is I learnt a lot from performing Juliet such as using body language and facial expression properly to shape me to the character. To experience their feelings and emotions physically first which can finally turn into the understanding of the spiritual level of the literary figures.