Weel2 Log

Day 1 ( Monday)

Today we performed about the scene when Juliet came to Friar Lawrence’s church in order to ask for the help. It was our first draft performance on the stage. Even though at that time I can memorize almost lines in my part, I still choose to read the lines and ask Sam what should we act on the stage. Then after the performance, Ms. Guarino talked a lot about our performance, and she offered some advice on how to control our talking speed on the stage and we maybe lack some reactions on the stage.  And also, many of our classmates gave us some advice from audience perspective to tell us what we did show well on the stage, and what do they want to see as the audience to see from the stage acting, so I very appreciated from their advice. In those e-mails, I knew our strength on the stage acting was that we had the body emotions which can directly show audiences what is happening on the stage, and also I think I can improve this strength because next week we will begin to rehearsal without looking at the lines, then we will show more body language on the stage to let them understand the plot better. And most of them showed interest in the creating fictional character Paris on the stage, even on the stage, we did not speak the name of Paris, but the audience could get the point of what means:” My lord, we  must entreat this time alone, so we are proud of this creative idea. But also, the emails pointed out a lot of shortcomings, like our speaking speed, I and Sam’s speaking are very fast that the audience is hard to follow what happened so that’s why they thought our body language is a good way to interpret the plot. We need to take more time on the stage to think and breathe. Also, compare with Sam, on the stage, I showed a little bit not expressive, maybe next time I need to try matching with Sam’s style in order to make the whole show be related. For Friar Lawrence part, I think I could use the costume to show my authority and for blocking part, I should consider more about how can we make the audience believe that Friar Lawrence is chatting with others, that is the next question I need to consider. So in general I am very thankful for Ms. Guarino to give us a chance to perform on the stage and give us the advice to improve the stage acting, and I believe after this rehearsal, me and Sam will know what should we improve on the stage so, in the following week, we must pay more attention to acting and interactions part. 

Day2 ( Wednesday )

In the Liter and Per class, today we did some emotion activity in order to help us to understand the character deeply then it can help us in acting the characters more vivid. So Ms. Guarino asked us to use different colors to underline each sentence to show the emotions in it. Like red means angry, black means desperate, yellow means truthfully, etc. So Ms. Guarino asked to  underline each line we need to perform on the stage. So I began to underline each line and discover what is the emotion in it. As I continue underlining, I began to understand Friar Lawrence deeply. In  the beginning, he just wanted to comfort Juliet but as time moves, he began to feel more guilty on Romeo and Juliet and he had to use the vial to save this couple. And even he knows that using vial is very dangerous and if he was found, he will lose the sacred identity. But he still tells the truth to Juliet about what will happen after Juliet drinks the vial, so I began to know more about Friar Lawrence, and also recently I repeatedly watched the video of Romeo and Juliet, so in my mind, there is a blueprint of the whole show, but I need more time to approve them on the stage and also make connections between Friar Lawrence and Juliet in front of audience. 

Day3 ( Thursday) 

Today we just stayed in the art building to memorize the lines, and Abby told us a good way to memorize the lines, which is to write down the lines repeatedly, then your muscle will memorize them then when you speaking out the lines, in your mind it would naturally appear the lines, which is very useful to help us to memorize the lines, especially in some part which is the soliloquy, so we can not make interaction with our partners to remind us of the lines, so the physical memorization helped to memorize the lines, and in the following week, I will add more body actions in the performing to help me to remind the lines, like what should I speak when I take out the vial, and what should I say after I shut the door. Physical memorization is very useful and give me more inspiration on the stage performing.