The goal of this analysis piece was to look deeper into the text. It was to display the content in such a way that you presented a commentary on the play. I chose to focus on Juliet and her evolution for this assignment. This is a play that is centered around destiny, but Juliet is not helpless to fate's whims. She evolves as a character from a little girl to a grown woman. She lives in a time period where girls' lives were determined by the fathers who often had their own goals when deciding the man they were to give their daughter to. She's not much for much besides giving birth to a wealthy gentleman's children. Juliet, especially, is used as a pawn in her father's political and economic game plan. The only person who cares for her is the Nurse. Juliet's mother most likely suffered the fate that is encroaching on her daughter and has not built a close relationship with her, but the Nurse has acted as her only friend, as well as her only nurturing figure. They are close. They tease each other, and as much as Juliet looks to the Nurse as a mother figure, the Nurse also looks toward Juliet as a daughter. But the Nurse is a childhood companion, and throughout this play, Juliet grows further away from her. Juliet takes her story into her own hands. Romeo had given her freedom and she was obsessed with it. She continues to go against society's conventions and becomes an independently minded individual, but in doing so, she turns away from her childhood crutch. In my scene sequence, Charlie and I hoped to use the evolution of the Nurse's role in relationship to Juliet to demonstrate Juliet's evolution into maturity.
With an idea we were both really excited about, we got to work. I played the Nurse and Charlie played Juliet. Our first draft was solid. We had presented the scenes in a way I was happy about, but we still needed to fine tune some of the nuances of the scene. The first scene of the sequence is one that I performed with Charlie before. Before, I had played her as a dimwitted character who was easily distracted, but for the purpose of this analysis, I played her more as a teasing character. I wanted her to egg on Juliet to show that Juliet was still quick to frustration and that she was still as emotional as a child, but I also wanted it clear that the Nurse cared a lot about her. Charlie really had to step up her foot stomping game, which she did marvelously well, but other than that, she had done well acting childish in both drafts, so I was really happy with the result. I still had a tough time acting out that I was teasing her, but I tried smiling notably at her when she was staring off into the distance imagining Romeo and then doing a weird head thing to show that I was acting dramatic purposefully. I know what I was doing, but I think the gesture might be just specific to me, so I don't know if it translated as I wanted it to. I wish I was completely off book, and I was pretty close, but I think I got nervous that I would forget something and was more reliant on it then I needed to be.
The second scene was really pivotal for our analysis. My favorite part of what we did was when Charlie yelled at me for shaming Romeo. Her voice got louder and stronger. She took a step toward the audience and I stepped back. This showed how Juliet had grown more confident. Toward the end, I reached my hand toward Charlie and she pushed it away. The gesture really emphasized how Juliet was outgrowing the Nurse. We talked a lot about gesturing. I was happy with what we did with the scene. I liked the hair petting in the third scene and Charlie's raised voice and clearly enunciated threat of suicide. I think we needed to work on our timing and pacing. There were times we tripped over each other to say our lines lr rushed through a monologue. We definitely improved since the first draft, but some points felt a little rushed. I'm not very good at gauging the length of a pause. At one point, I had forgotten a sentence at the end of an explanation. I though the pause was too long, so I said, but that just made the scene more awkward.
We used minimal props. We revolved around a chair in the first two scenes and a bed in the second. This kept the focus on the two characters. They revolved around each other and spent most of the scene looking at each other. There are external factors that are motivating Juliet's change, but we can see it clearly in the conversations she has with the Nurse. My costume wasn't fancy. A dress was covered with a white apron, and the blue ribbons attached to the dress sleeves were tucked it. It wasn't flashy because after all she's basically a servant. Charlie was dressed in a white dress. This was done to represent her innocence, because despite, her growing independence, she still was a girl. I think the costuming helped to demonstrate that the Nurse was just Juliet's servant. The difference was especially important in the second two scenes to show that the two close friends were different from each other. The costumes were indicative of the the characters' actual societal status, but also, later on, acted as a commentary of the divide between the two characters.
This assignment has made me pay very close attention to detail. Facial expressions and hand gestures are important when you are trying to convey a scene a certain way. One scene can be presented a myriad of different ways, so it is important that you are conscious of the interpretation you want to perform and that you let this guide your blocking and tone decisions. My performing decisions have become more conscious decisions. I think about what I want to achieve and what tone a person would use to achieve that. It is important to get to know your character well. I got to know the Nurse, so I could determine her motivations. I think my performances have become more thought out. I think doing this pre-performing internal analysis that I'm becoming more confident on stage. I hope that it reflects in my work.
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