Written course draft 2

Written coursework draft 3

Romeo and Juliet, A famous play written by Shakespeare, which is a hybridization of love and hate. It talks about the feuds between two families, Capulet and Montague, are settled down by the deaths of two star-crossed lovers --- Romeo and Juliet. In Act 3 scene 5 which was the scene I chose to perform, Juliet changes a lot through her rebellion against her destiny encouraged by Romeo's love; in order to perform Juliet, I focused on body language and facial expression to comprehensively portray her as emotional and sensitive 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”(3.5.62-63). Since the reputation of “f” sounds like preying, 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 that she wants to kill Romeo in person to revenge for Tybalt’s death. 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!” (3.5.99-102) 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. Juliet’s rebellion is aroused by both the desire for love, and heavy pressure, and its power was unimaginable strong which can change Juliet’s personality. Further more, when Lord Capulet’s parts are added in which intensifies the conflicts because the overwhelming atmosphere brought by Lord Capulet are forcing Juliet, and the tensions between Juliet’s 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 and finally break out in Juliet’s mind. The scene I chose in which Juliet stands right in front of a dilemma and starts to change mentally which was the embryonic beginning of her rebellion. 

We performed this scene in the black box, and the way we organized the stage is we put a bed on the up stage because this scene takes place in Juliet’s bedroom. And on the down stage where faces the audiences directly is the balcony, since this is the most possible way to avoid showing my back to the audiences when I performed Juliet. Besides, there were also a wardrobe and other decoration which could show the wealthy of Juliet’s family. For costume part, I, as Juliet, planned to wear a long white dress which could clearly show Juliet’s pureness and beauty. Moreover, I decided to draw an Art Nouveau style red rose tattoo on my arm to show her rebellion spirit in her deep soul, and the rose symbolize the charming love and bloody death.

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 like “fortune”, “fickle” and “send him back”, and slowed down my talking speed to show how much I missed my Romeo and called his name in the distance. Also, I used knitting my brows and crossing 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.” (3.5.81) 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”(3.5.82), 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” (3.5.83) 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 bent my knees and stepped my feet with my legs trembling, shook my head and came closer to Lady Capulet when I said “I will not marry yet”(3.5.121), also, I rose my voice and talked quickly for those “if I do, I swear, it shall be Romeo” (3.5.121) lines to show that I was extremely determined when I rejected to betray Romeo, and no one could force me to do that 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” (3.5.122). For this part, I, as Juliet, was trying to show I was vacillating between whether I should just telling Lady Capulet the truth to cancel inappropriate marriage or not; 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. So I batted my eyelid unnaturally, compressed my lips several times and show a bitter face to the audiences in order to reflect this mental activities. 

Then, Lord Capulet came in and forced me to accept this marriage, and his words were like fuel added on the fire. I turned my hands into fists and said “love can never be of what I hate” (3.5.147) between clenched teeth. I twisted the edge of my dress and looked him in his eyes unshakably telling him that I could not obey this time. When he yelled at my face, my gaze was cold, angry and desperate which was totally different with how I looked at Romeo in eyes. 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, walked back few steps and turned around 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. I tried to let tears come out of my eyes, and I, as Juliet, was sacrificed for love and changed for love. 

For me, every character is like a container, and as an 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, but it is actually made by diamond which is not only shining but also hard. 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. However, I depicted the strong and stubborn side of her personality which means I showed a changing Juliet to audiences successfully. The amazing thing is I learnt a lot from performing Juliet such as using body language and facial expression properly to shape myself to the character. Juliet, a character should be portrayed like a real person but also should be exaggerated more than a real world person. The way to truly perform her is to experience her feelings and emotions physically first which can finally turn into the understanding of the spiritual level of this literary figure.