3rd Week 25th - 28th September

25th September (Monday)

We continued to work with R&J play starting from the party scene. Everyone is going to be on stage during the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time.We broke into few groups enjoying with our little conversations without making any sounds as we were supposed to be the background for this scene. Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt and Capulet will be speaking with their own lines while we 'the guests' will continue to enjoy our party. We were asked to be quiet when getting our voices louder, because the loud noises in the background will affect the actors from saying their lines in front.

Having both groups of people on stage acting different things is a very good idea as audience gets to see the details we put in the scene. Yet, if both of the groups make noises at the same time, audience wouldn't know where to put their focus on. So, Rob has been so serious when we make too much noise at the back.

What I learned form above?...
It is important to let actors to know we do not only act with a character on stage but we also need to think of how we will look in front of the audience. For example, we all knew that it's going to be a party scene on stage, we enjoyed it, and putting all the big movements and voices in the scene and did not realize that it could be a bad consequent if audience couldn't get what the main characters are doing in front. 

Next we are going to focus on our understanding for the play and our freezing technic. We added three most important scenes in the list and we have to act it out by adding one dialogue for each scene and freeze for few seconds before moving to another scene. 

Here are the three important scenes in R&J showing with pictures...

The very first scene.
Nikaya represents Juliet from Capulet. Jeremy represents Romeo from Montague.
Abe play as Abraham and I'm Sampson. We both show our hate to each other from each family. 

The Party Scene. 
The scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet.
Abe and I represent the guests in background. 

The very last scene. 
The death of Romeo and Juliet.
Abe represents the Capulets and I represent the Montagues.
Showing that the death of the couple had brought how awful upshot to both family.

We presented the three scenes to class, then Sharon asked us to present it again with adding three more important scenes from R&J. Which will be six in total. After a ten minutes of discussion and demonstrating. We came up with the six scenes:

• The fighting scene between Montagues and Capulets
• The party scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet 
• The balcony scene where Romeo confess his love to Juliet
• The marriage between Romeo and Juliet
• The fighting scene that kills Paris and Tybalt
• The final scene where Romeo and Juliet die

Four of us used up most empty spaces in the theatre and the pausing time gap between each scene was just right. Besides, we did great in our levels too, we have half lowered body, laying done on the floor and also standing up straight.

What I learned from above?...

Freeze frames are one of the most important technics for an actor. As the play goes on and on actors change their expression fast from angry to more angry or less angry by any line they speak. But with freeze frame, actors get to show their facial expression in specific timing without any conversation with others and do not need to react from what they say. It is just all about what you see and what you feel about the scene. 

26th September (Tuesday) + 28th September (Thursday)

We finished with the whole play!!

2nd Week 18th - 21st September

18th September (Monday)

It's my first class!!

We played a game, it's for us to remember others' names. The game was to all stand in a circle and one starts first by calling out someone's name and when the person says yes, the first person can move to that person's place, and the second person will have to call out another person's name until they say yes in order to move. We played for few rounds and I finally get to know all of their names.

We started our class with few warm ups, including showing our understanding of each expression and body movements. Then, we move on to voice exercise, which everyone has to think of a line from the play and keep it in mind, we imagined there was a candle in our hand, and whisper or shout our line to the candle. After that, we were called to separate in group A and B, group A will do their performance first while group B will sit at the last row of audience seat watch and give comments. What we're doing was to shout our line three times, to the candle in our hand, to the chair in front of us, and to group Bs who represent audiences. after group A done with their voice projection, group B's turn.

What I learned from above?...

Actors will learn who they wanted to send their voices to when they're speaking, not only to make the audience to hear our lines clearly, also making the actors to speak out with intensity and show much more conflicts about the play within the lines when we have a target space to project our voices to.

We moved on to the party scene in Romeo and Juliet, Rob asked us to give ourselves a name, an occupation, a talent, a hobby and a joke to share with so that everyone has an character now. We met people around the room and talk about ourselves. Then, we started to act out our talent to others by making only one sound.

What I learned from above?...
Actors get to know how a party scene will be, which is about a character talking and enjoying with other characters on stage. In order to let the audience see what we're doing, body action will be the main thing for us, we need to make it clear of what we're doing and knowing how to react with another character opposite or beside us. We get to see all different kind of people getting along and laughing or sharing stories in groups. 

19th September (Tuesday)

We did warm ups included walking with neutral look and reflection. We were asked to walk with three different positions when Sharon shouts different number from 1 to 3. We can't show any characteristic by any movements we're doing.
Number 1, we need to walk with a heavy body.
Number 2, will be more relax compare to the first one.
Number 3, we were asked to walk in a very neutral position and eyes up straight.

After that, we did reflection activity by working with a partner and take turns to do some movements in slow motion and the opposite person will need to follow it.

What i learned from above?...
Actors can easily get into their character after getting use to empty themselves, people will normally put themselves into the character they're casting but not the character itself. Before knowing how to perfectly cast out a character, actors need to know how to empty their own personality first.
Reflection is one of the important skills for an actor, they will be observing on what others are doing on stage and quickly react with it.

We then start with our fight scene, not sure if it will be in Romeo and Juliet. We were asked to find ourselves a partner and take turns to fight in slow motion, the person opposite will react. Each person will have their own three fighting movements. After few minutes of practicing, we need to perform it in front of the class. My partner was Grace, both of us worked really well together and the class enjoyed watching our performance.

After everyone had performed their fighting scene, we were then asked to separate in two lines. Each actor will have their partner opposite, there will be around 2 meters of distance between the two lines, and we need to start our fight with slow motion from the top of the line to the bottom so that audiences in front can see everyone on stage.

What i learned from above?...
Why slow motion? Slow motion has been a very common technic for actors, I enjoyed doing slow motions, it gives time for actors to think of their next movement, and how would they react with anything. Slow movements show details in body gesture and interactive between the actors.

Other than our actions, we were also asked to stay with a face with tension while looking at our partner opposite, the look on each of our face will let the fighting scene more distinctly. 

21st September (Thursday)

We've got our character in Romeo and Juliet!!

Quite sad knowing that I've got only two lines in the whole play and it's only the beginning of scene 1. But there's this quote ran into my head, "there are no small parts, only small actors". I can't even remember whose quote is that, but the meaning of that quote couldn't fade in my brain.

After everyone know what role they got, Rob started to direct us to where we should position ourselves and began with the first scene. Sampson (Nikaya) was absent that day, so Rob took over her place to guide us for the scene.

What I need to put in this scene?... 

• Expression showing how uncomfortable when I see Montagues. 
• The ferocious look when Sampson and I start having some conversations with them. 
• The moment we starting a fight with them. 
• When Benvolio came in to stop the fight and pull them away from us, how we show our look to them. 

Term 1 unit 4 SHAKESPEARE & ROMEO AND JULIET

Shakespeare's Timeline

23rd April 1564
William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon

1569
Shakespeare goes to school. King's New School, an excellent grammer school in Stratford.

26th November 1582

Shakespeare marries Anne Hathwey who is 8 years older than him.

26th May 1583
Shakespeare's first child, Susanna is born 6 months after marriage.

1585
Shakespeare's wife gives birth to twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith.

1590
Shakespeare writes his very first play, Henry The VI, part one. Also around the same time, he leaves Stratford to begin work as a playwright and actor in London.

1592
Shakespeare has become successful enough as a playwright to make his peer jealous. Robert Greene writes a scathing critique of him, calling him a "upstart crow".

April 1593
Shakespeare publishes his first long poem, "Venus and Adonis".

May 1594
Shakespeare publishes "The Rape of Lucrece". He also purchases shares in the Chamberlain's Men in the same year.

11th August 1596
Shakespeare and Anne bury their only son, Hamnet, who dies at the age of 11 of unknown causes.

May 1597
Shakespeare becoming more wealthy thanks to his theater work and shrewed investments. He buys a new place, which is the second-largest house in Stratford.

1598
Francis Meres publishes a glowing review of Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare has become a noted playwright with at least a dozen plays under his belt, including Romeo and Juliet, A Mid-summer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Love Labor's Lost and Titus Andronicus.

1599
The Chamberlain's Men build the Globe, a wooden theater in London. Many of Shakespeare most famous plays are performed for the first time here.

1601
Shakespeare's father dies, and his patron Earl Southampton is sentenced to death for his role in the Essex Rebellion. Shakespeare's father's death motivates him to write Hamlet around this time. His plays over the next few years take a dark, brooding tone.

14th March 1603
Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I, King James ascends the throne. The Chamberlain's Men change their name to the King's Men.

1608 
The King's Men begin performing at Blackfriars, an indoor theater in London. In contrast to the somber mood of the last seven years.

1609
Thomas Thorpe prints a collection of 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets.

1611
Shakespeare leaves London and move back to Stratford, where his wife and married daughters live.


1613
Shakespeare composes his final plays, Henry VIII, Two Nobel Kinsmen, and the Now-Lost Cardenio in  collaboration with John Fletcher.

25th March 1616
Shakespeare calls his lawyer to revise his will.

23rd April 1616
Suffering from an unknown illness, Shakespeare dies in his 52nd Birthday.

25th April 1616
Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford two days after he's died.

Informations from link below:
https://www.shmoop.com/william-shakespeare/timeline.html

Review on Romeo and Juliet

Review for the link below...

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/may/26/romeo-and-juliet-review-branagh-lily-james-richard-madden-garrick-theatre

After reading through the paragraphs on how Kenneth Branagh's Romeo and Juliet goes, there're things that I wanted to share it out.

• The play was played in a modern world, but with men wearing dark suits, and women with petticoat. It has a fantastical combination with 2016 (when Romeo and Juliet is played) and 1950s. 
• Comparing to the Romeo and Juliet play we know for the past, Branagh has introduced a fascinating style of the play to the audience. Every moment in the play was remake from a very classical and well known sense of style to a stage full of vitality, as every of the character on stage acquits the story of R&J very well.
• For the character Romeo and Juliet, they both annotated the youth spirit and the passion for their love in play. However for us, we are still in our teen age, it will be more realistic for the audiences to enjoy the play as we do not need to hide our maturity on stage.

What can we do to improve our performance for the play after reading the review from the website?...

Excluding the fun part for the audiences to enjoy a modern style of Romeo and Juliet, the parts that we need to work more on will be our slang and costume. Firstly, the slang in Shakespeare's play gives a lot of tension, but what we are going to play is a modern story, and will not be following the slang of Shakespeare, we need to build our tension with our own slang and voice.

Costumes

As playing a classical play with modern style will be reducing the sense of times. In order to not loss the significance in Romeo and Juliet, choosing the right costumes will be as important as understanding the whole play. Different colour theme of costumes between characters lead them to stay in their role immediately, for examples, different colour theme between Montagues and Capulets will give a big contrast on both households. And, costumes between the lords and their servants should be classify with the amount of jewellery they put on themselves, bright and dull colour, the smartness of costume for lord.

 Is Shakespeare still relevant in 2017?...

After doing some research and combine them with my own thoughts, yes, I think Shakespeare is relevant in 2017 for us and even for the future generations. I've got some strong points from few websites to help me prove that.

Lets take Romeo and Juliet as the first example, Shakespeare's work is relatable with modern days. People might say it's been more than 400 years, perspective of his during that time should be irrelevant by this time. Shakespeare's writing has inspired many of today's best modern works. We might change the style of how are we going to perform his play but Shakespeare's original story still will be the base for all. 

We often quoted Shakespeare's line without knowing. To be honest, I learned to say 'To be or not to be' before knowing Shakespeare. Shakespeare's words and phrases has taken the big part in our lives. As a drama student, i would say that he knows how to describe and express his characters' emotions, all of his characters in each play have their very powerful personality. That's also why i said his work is relatable, not only with his play but also his characters' personalities and how they act. From villains, murderers, lovers and dreamers to traitors, servants, witches and magicians, there're full of everything that you can imagine and more.

Informations from links below:
http://sajhs.nebo.edu/news/shakespeare-still-relevant-today
https://news.usc.edu/91717/six-reasons-shakespeare-remains-relevant-400-years-after-his-death/

Cultural significance of Romeo and Juliet

Language that Shakespeare used in Romeo & Juliet

Shakespeare's work is written in Elizabethan English, it's poetic and also with iambic pentameter. What's iambic pentameter? It's an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable and also a form of poetic device which lends rhythm and almost musical quality to the language. He used the style of this to write his plays and especially in his sonnets.

Elizabethan English is considered to be a part of Early Modern English. It was basically a transition from Middle English. Shakespeare wrote during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and was highly influenced both politically and stylistically. This is where the term Elizabethan English stems from.

Words in Elizabethan language
Writers and playwrights invented new words during Elizabethan times. Shakespeare invented the most new words than any other single person while writing his plays, they were approx 2000 new words.

Themes in Romeo & Juliet

Love -  The play focusses on romantic love, especially the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. It has some of the most beautiful, passionate love poetry ever written in English. Maybe Shakespeare does want us to believe in true love. Love in first sight has become believable after since.

Hate -  In Romeo & Juliet, love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. When the hatred between the Montagues and Capulets finally drives the lovers to their tragic deaths, it seems like love might finally triumph over hate. But if they're just two sides of the same coin, how can this kind of passionate love even exist without hate?

Fate -  In Romeo & Juliet fate refers to the description of the lovers as "star-crossed". This phrase seems to hint that the stars have predetermined the lovers' future.

Marriage -  In the world of Romeo and Juliet, marriage of love rather than money or social position, is a radical and dangerous choice, particularly for kids from wealthy and influential families. Romeo and Juliet pay a heavy price for marrying for love, their furtive union propels the lovers towards their tragic deaths.

Informations from links below:
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-language.htm
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/themes.html
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/romeo-and-juliet/critical-essays/major-themes