Log 3

After today's performance, which is my second time to perform the whole show in front of Ms. Guarino. After the first performance, Ms. Guarino gave us a lot of advice, which helped me and Sam to consider what is good in our performance, what is bad. After one week, we played the whole show again in order to get some feedback from my classmates as from a audience view and also from Ms. Guarino. After the performance, even though Ms.Guarino said that we improved a lot from last performance, she needs to be critical because this is in IB program, every detail is very important, so she pointed out several points Sam and I need to continue improving. 

So the first thing is the pronunciation, for me, Ms. Guarino asks me to say slowly and clearly.  For speaking slowly not only because Friar Lawrence was a friar and this character’s age was older than Juliet. At this point, when Juliet was very excited and wanted Lawrence to comfort her, during the show, not only in speaking, but also some physical movement to show the different levels between Friar Lawrence and Juliet. When Juliet is very upset, Friar Lawrence should comfort her and give her some solution, but audience did not the script, so from the actor’s point, you need to let audience soon figure out your characteristic and job on the stage as soon as possible. Ms. Guarino wanted me, as Friar Lawrence, not only to speak like a friar, but also to use body language to show the characteristic. And also from my classmates feedback, I know that I need to pronounce each word clearly in order to let the audience listen and understand what was happened on the stage. That is one difficult I need to overcome in this weekend, not only slow my speaking, but also i need to relate my emotion with the lines. Maybe in that way I can express Friar Lawrence more vivid.  Then Ms. Guarino said that our memorization of lines is good but we needed to add more actions on the stage, we should do more body languages on the stage, do not like a model who just stands on the stage and do not have interactions with your partners, speaking is one way to know one character’s charactersitc, also from the character’s body language, audience could get more information because the body language is directly watched by audience. So I think in our act, I need to add more interactions with Sam, like when she uses knife to threat me, when I want to comfort her, when I want to show I am considering about the solution, and when i show my worried on this idea. So these things I can not use speaking to express for audience, and audience could not get this from my body language. Also in my speaking lines part, many of my classmates asked me to have some changes in the speaking. If there’s no changing voice, they thought I am only a robot on the stage to read the lines, which is emotionless, Friar Lawrence is an old and famous character in the book, so in my talking, I can accent some important words to show my worried, like when I explain to Juliet about what will happen after she drinks the vial, and when I want to comfort her. In these long monologue, maybe I should break down the lines, like add some stop points in it in order to let myself have some relax on the stage, but also can help audience to figure out what was happening on the stage. After this performance, from my classmates and Ms. Guarino’s feedback, I know that in the performance, I should continue working on change in emotion, whatever in speaking lines or not speaking, if there’s no speaking part, I also need to react with Sam, also do not stand on the stage like a robot. And for the starting part, I will also work on how to let audience to understand the fake character on the stage, these things are really important to relate each part in the performance on the stage together. 

However, on Friday’s class, I talked with Ms. Guarino about the beginning setting part, and then I communicated with Sam about her opinion on the beginning part, so finally we changed to the the setting that on the left stage, there are two chairs, which in the beginning I will sit on one of them and imitate I am talking with Paris, and I also changed my lines from “ My lord, we must entreat this time alone.” to “ Paris, my lord, we must entreat this time alone.” Which would let audience to figure out the whole setting clearly. And after Juliet knocks the door, I will move from left stage to stage right, and to close the door, then move back to center. Also Juliet will only move from the door, which locates on the stage right to center.  Then we added more actions in the conversation: when I say” Ah, Juliet I already know thy grief,” I would imitate I want to hug with her, to comfort her, also when I say “ As that is desperate, which we could precent.” I would take off the knife from Juliet’ s hand.  And after I say, “ Let no thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber,” I will be silence for several seconds, and then walked to my cabinet, and imitate I am finding the vial, but after the vial, I will not immediately give it to Juliet, I will consider a lot, and then finally make the decision to give to her. Which I think I add more actions and more emotions in the perforation which would make the audience understand more deeply and would feel that I am Friar Lawrence on the stage.