Session Three: Weeks 20 and 21

Week 20: Tuesday

Written by Matthew.

We turned our attention to Romeo and Friar Lawrence today.

The women had already warmed up by the time we got to them, and they were ready to go.  We were fortunate to have more than one facilitator present, as all the core members of the group were present, but we needed to spend some time sorting out an interpersonal issue while simultaneously rehearsing.  While Frannie worked through the issue with two women—both core members, both important to the group—the rest of us worked on Act 2, Scene 3.

In the scene, Romeo bounces up to Friar Lawrence in the morning after having fallen in love with Juliet.  He teases his mentor briefly before launching into a declaration of love and intent to marry the daughter of his enemy.  Friar Lawrence at first admonishes Romeo, but ends up beginning to hatch his plan to bring peace to the families.

After talking through the scene, Romeo and Friar Lawrence determined for themselves where the “walls” and “windows” of the Friar’s backyard were.   The scene felt stiff on the first run, but the breakthrough came when a woman suggested that the Friar remain gardening on his knees while Romeo flits around him.  This created the right sort of tension, and allowed the Friar to dramatically rise to his feet in surprise when Romeo expresses his desire to marry Juliet.

We spent most of our time finding the right tone for the scene.  Romeo is both excited and bubbly and also frustrated by the Friar’s soberness.  He is impatient, but also taunting.  After several runs, we finally began to hit the right chord.  Romeo’s effusiveness causes the Friar to be even slower and more deliberate than he usually is, which in turn causes Romeo to taunt his elderly mentor.

When we had worked the scene sufficiently, the group gathered to talk about the problem of absences.  It can be hard to sort the women who are choosing not to attend from those who have no choice.  The core group expressed some frustration at this, since it cuts down the number of scenes that we can rehearse.

The group is ready for new members, and needs them to fill out the meetings.

Week 21: Tuesday

We spent some time today discussing possible performance times based on the participants’ work schedules and other mandatory conflicts. We hope to have these solidified soon.

We then realized that one of our newer members had not yet chosen a part. She had never been on stage before and wanted something “smaller,” so the group suggested she give Friar John a try. We read through Act V Scene ii to make sure that she and Friar Laurence understood it, and then we put it on its feet. The group applauded Friar John for being confident and showing she understood the text her first time ever performing, and then we began to dig deeper. “What is the mood in this scene?” one of the women asked. We looked for clues in the text – Friar John’s not understanding the import of the letter, Friar Laurence’s extreme urgency and frantic thinking of “Plan B.” We went through it again, and it improved, but the Friars were still not satisfied. We did an exercise in which they put their scripts down and improvised through the scene in their own words until they’d managed to hit all the main points and get a better feel for the atmosphere. When they performed again with their scripts, the scene was much closer to being what they want it to be.

The woman playing Friar John felt much better about performing after this and will consider taking on an additional minor role. The group was very excited about her willingness to commit so quickly.

Since we have recast the role of Tybalt, we returned to the section of Act I Scene v that is between him and Capulet. We worked on clarifying what the characters want: Tybalt wants to fight Romeo, and Capulet wants to stop him from ruining the party. The woman playing Capulet mentioned that her interpretation is that Capulet dislikes Tybalt because of his affair with Lady Capulet.  We tried to make things more physical, asking Capulet, for example, to imagine a rubber ball inside of her that she can bounce off of people (I swear, this is a real acting technique!), and Tybalt to experiment with different animal images like bulldogs and roosters.

We disbanded hoping to add new members to the group very soon and get to work on scenes that involve more people, since we have covered nearly all of the two and three person scenes at this point.

Week 21: Thursday

Attendance was light today, so we devoted the time to figuring out some of our technical needs.

We had originally discussed building soft flats that would act as scenery, but the more we talked, the more complicated this seemed to get. One of the women came up with an idea to draw and/or paint images that could be displayed on easels on either side of the stage to set each scene. This would eliminate the need for complicated set changes, as one person could simply remove a picture during each scene change. It would also eliminate the need to build a platform to use as the balcony, as the auditorium has a stage that is a bit elevated, and a picture will help us communicate what might be too complex for us to build in a set. The woman who came up with this idea will be its “designer,” figuring out what we need for each scene and delegating to our more artistically-inclined members what they are in charge of drawing or painting.

We then began to brainstorm ideas for a backdrop to set the tone. This backdrop would be made up of soft flats and would provide not only something more interesting to look at than the back wall, but a potential way to get from one side of the stage to the other without being seen (this was an issue when we did The Tempest). We decided to leave it there and continue to brainstorm with the larger group.

We also did a bit of thinking about costumes, mainly what colors they should be, and possible music to use.

Although there weren’t many of us there today, we got a lot accomplished. With the group’s input and permission, I’ve also made a number of cuts to our script that we’ll begin working with next week, and we hope to bring in more people on Tuesday. There was some frustration expressed that the performance might not be all we had hoped it would be, and I encouraged everyone present to let go of their expectations, accept that it will not be perfect, but that whatever this turns out to be, we will work as a team and it will be ours. As one woman put it after we performed The Tempest, “That was a difficult process, but if it hadn’t been hard, I don’t think I would appreciate this as much.”

Session Three: Weeks 18 and 19

Week 18: Thursday  

After welcoming a few new members to the group and warming up together, we moved forward in the script with Act III Scene iv, in which Capulet sets a date for Juliet’s wedding with Paris. Although it is a brief scene, we delved pretty deep into the characters here, beginning with determining how everyone feels about the situation. The women have envisioned this scene possibly taking place in Capulet’s office, sort of a “Godfather” setting.

We determined that Paris is uncomfortable with the situation and tries to leave, but Capulet doesn’t let him. We played with different ways of Capulet making Paris stay in the room, really “manhandling” him by subtly blocking his exit and keeping him in his chair with a “fatherly” hand on the shoulder. We talked about the need for Capulet to be bombastic not just when he’s happy at the party, but in all situations, at least at this point. We also discovered that the more justified movement the scene had, the better it worked.

We also worked a bit on Act III Scene iii, in which Friar Laurence tells Romeo that he has been banished. At first it was a bit rushed, so we stopped the scene and talked about how we all have a tendency to led bad news sink in a bit before reacting to it. With this, the woman playing Romeo, took her time processing what the Friar told her, and the result was a beautiful, slow scene in which we all understood exactly what she was saying because she began to allow herself to “fall in” to it, or “feel it,” as the women often say. The woman playing the Friar listened and reacted truthfully as well, and we were all moved. That being said, there are cues in the text that tell us that this quiet interpretation will not work in performance, since Friar Laurence calls Romeo a “mad man,” and Romeo talks about tearing his hair and throwing himself on the ground. We’ll be working toward an emotional build in the scene, beginning with this woman’s interpretation and developing it further. But she clearly empathizes with Romeo and has a natural gift for performing this text; we are all excited to be part of her development.

Week 18: Thursday canceled due to bad road conditions. We can't wait for this winter to end!

Week 19: Tuesday

Written by Matthew

Tuesday was a bit of a challenge, but the group made it work for us.  Most of our participants went to a Black History month event scheduled at the same time as our group.  The event also took place in the prison’s auditorium, so we met in one of the classrooms in the programs building.  We began with about eight women present, including two new members.

We talked briefly with the new members about the group and warmed up.  The few core members who were present really wanted to dive into a scene, so we looked at the opening if Act III, scene i.  In this scene, Mercutio and Tybalt begin the altercation that will eventually end in both their deaths.

The women decided that the pacing of the scene was key to establishing tension, so they wanted to read over the lines several times sitting before trying to stumble through on their feet.  They worked out several options for the tone and pacing—fast and staccato or building slowly—before getting up to walk through it.

As soon as they were on their feet, the women understood that where and how they moved in this scene was as important as the lines they were saying.  So much of being threatening or playful is about being threatening or playful with your body.  The Tybalt’s lines, delivered with an ironic twist, mean something very different from his lines delivered earnestly.  The women were keen to try a short section many times in as many ways as they could think.

We tried an exercise in which Tybalt and Mercutio circled each other, sizing each other up like animals, while Benvolio stood in the background.  After a dozen or more experiments, Tybalt and Mercutio began to hit a stride that worked for them.

Unfortunately, we had to go at this moment.  Our participants had other appointments to go to, and it was getting late.  We closed the meeting and headed home.

Week 19: Thursday

Today was unfortunately very brief, as all programming was cut short about 45 minutes into our meeting and all inmates were required to return to their units. We did manage to warm up as a group and do some improvisation, re-emphasizing the importance of participation. The group also has decided to set the performance in a somewhat neutral place in terms of scenery, so we can begin gathering materials for that now. We will pick back up with Romeo and Juliet next week.

Session Three: Week 17

Tuesday

Written by Matthew

Today, we discovered the Capulet family dynamic.

We began with some silly warm ups to loosen everyone up and get us thinking on our feet. The group seemed to be suffering from the February blues, and a few high-energy games got us moving and laughing.

The group wanted to dive into a scene. We had the nuclear Capulet family present—father, mother, Juliet, and nurse—so we decided to work on Act III scene v. In this scene, Juliet and Romeo awake after spending their first night together. After Romeo leaves, Juliet is confronted with the news that she must marry Paris.

We read through the first part of the scene several times until Romeo and Juliet were comfortable with the rise and fall of their conversation. Once we had played around with some movement and a few different tones of voice, Romeo and Juliet dropped their scripts and partnered with actors who were not on stage. The partners shadowed the two actors and read the words, one line at a time, to them. Romeo and Juliet repeated the lines, which allowed them to use their hands and eyes. Freed from the script, the actors found unexpected moments of intimacy in their dialogue, and also found moments of youthful miscommunication.

When we continued, Juliet was confronted first by her mother then by her father. The cold, combative tone that Capulet and Lady Capulet found in their readings contrasted with Romeo and Juliet’s warm banter. In particular, Capulet wanted to find the emotional arc of her vitriolic monologue.

The biggest question that the actors wrestled with during this scene was about the relationship between Lady Capulet and Capulet. At times, Capulet and his wife seem to gang up on their daughter. At times, Lady Capulet seems to be protective. After running through the dialogue a few times, we settled on the idea that the Capulet marriage is a partnership; any hesitation on Lady Capulet’s part is half-hearted.

In the final minutes of our meeting, the women discussed the challenge of maintaining a consistent emotional tone for each character. We closed by recapping the decisions of the day, and we went back to our homes and units.

 Thursday

We began today by welcoming and orienting two new members of the group. They are both very excited to be there and immediately volunteered to participate, improvise and read.

We began to read through Act V Scene I, since one of our new members is interested in playing Balthasar, but then two more new people showed up! So we stopped, welcomed and oriented them as well.

With the little time we had left, we decided to play some games and do some improv. This was a lot of fun – no one held back, and everyone was creative and open to “saying yes,” which is the most important thing in improv.

We are very happy to have some fresh energy in the group and look forward to possibly welcoming more people next week.

Session Three: Week 16

Tuesday  

After our warm up, the women playing Mercutio and Capulet informed the group that they have decided to trade roles. They are much more comfortable now and enthusiastic about the change.

In discussing our game plan for the day, one of the women mentioned that she was concerned about the prologue, specifically that the audience won’t understand it. After discussing a few different ways of dealing with this, a woman who has been in the group for a very long time was suddenly inspired and began detailing a really interesting concept in which the entire ensemble participated. The entire group turned the reins over to her, making suggestions when she got stuck momentarily but more or less following her directions. This turned out beautifully – we all worked together, and the staging of the prologue thus far (we got through about half) is poetic and helpful to telling the story.

We then worked Juliet’s monologue just before she takes the sleeping potion, as the woman playing that part was curious about where we can make cuts. After reading through it and talking about it, she realized that she really loves this monologue and doesn’t want to cut it after all. We worked through it a few times, guiding her as she strengthened her imagery and began to let the language overtake her. Her voice slowed and grew more powerful. She began to “feel the part.”

This was a very positive day, during which the feeling of the ensemble strengthening was palpable.

Thursday

The group began something really great during the two weeks when I couldn’t be there, which is that now when we warm up, each person leads the group through one stretch or exercise, instead of warm ups resting on one person. We also took the time today to kick back and play a very silly, fun game to keep us on our toes.

The woman playing the Nurse then took the stage to work on her monologue in Juliet’s bedchamber. She has already memorized the first half of it and absolutely has the sense of the second half. We worked with her to further incorporate the bond with Juliet, the heart and attitude of the piece, and the humor. The more we encouraged her to let it all hang out and have fun, the more hilarious she was to watch. And the woman playing Juliet reacted in priceless ways – clearly with affection, but rolling her eyes. These two women are friends outside the group, and their bond enhances what they do together on stage.

We then worked a bit on Act I Scene I, making some judicious cuts and working at finding the hatred these characters have for one another; finding a justification within the characters for their violence.  The women are a bit hesitant to be quite as hostile toward one another as the text demands, which is something we’ll work toward. As long as we all know we’re in a safe space in our group, we should be able to go wherever we need to go on stage.

Session Three: Week 15

Tuesday  

Written by Molly

Low temperatures made the attendance lower than usual this Tuesday. As we had already made our way through the entire play, it was time to get on stage and start imagining what the staging would look like. Throughout the course of the evening, we worked through several scenes, skipping around to accommodate the people who were there by working with scenes that featured their characters.

When it came to staging, the women were very enthusiastic yet slightly restrained. It was easy to tell they were fairly comfortable with each other, but need to work with each other more to get better physicality. As many of the women are not used to being on stage, it often seemed like they weren’t sure what to do with their bodies during the scene. The women were eager to share their ideas about what they could be doing to make them feel less awkward. The woman playing Juliet suggested that she have a vanity during Act I, scene iii where she could be brushing her hair during the parts where her character was more taciturn. The woman playing the Nurse suggested bringing in some couches from another place in the Programs area. It was easy to tell they are already envisioning how the scenes might play out in front of an audience and have plenty of ideas.

While at times it seemed some women were more reserved during staging, some were uninhibited and quite creative with their characterization. During a scene where we needed some Montague extras, two women volunteered and outshined the rest of the group with their conversation, miming, and making fun of the other characters on stage. While it was a little bit much, I reassured the group that it was good to start by overacting so you feel more comfortable being on stage. Then it is easy to bring it back and make the scene both natural and dynamic.

The last scene we went into was Act 3, scene 5, and unfortunately we didn’t have enough time left to tackle this complicated scene. As the majority of the women didn’t remember reading this scene, we decided to just read it again before putting it on its feet. The woman playing Juliet admitted she didn’t understand what was happening in the scene at all, and we worked through what the characters were really talking about while repeatedly referring to “the lark” and “the nightingale” – young lovers flirting and trying to prolong their time with one another. After that, the women just started staging again without any prompting from me, creatively arranging the chairs on stage to be a bed for Romeo and Juliet. They agreed that it was a very complicated, emotional scene that deserved more time, but we will have to save it for another night.

Thursday

Today began with the women giving me a recap of the past two weeks, when weather and other circumstances have prevented me from attending. “Don’t worry, we’ve been fine without you,” they said, and that was truly great to hear. I knew that the group had been making headway with the other facilitators, but what surprised me was that, when none of us were able to make it, the women were still meeting and working on the script. The ensemble is getting stronger and less dependent on me, which is fantastic.

We talked a bit about our show’s concept today. Since the program received a generous grant from Eileen Fisher, we will be able to purchase or rent more things this time around. It gives us greater flexibility and freedom to imagine a production that will look more like what we see in our heads. There has been some talk of setting the play in the 1920s and making the families rival gangs during Prohibition, but the question of what weapons we’d be allowed to use in the fights keeps coming up. We have been allowed to use foam swords in the past, but a few of the women have been in performances when they were not allowed to use stand-ins for more modern weapons. We’ve given ourselves a deadline of two weeks from now to solidify the setting of the play, and then we’ll go from there.

We decided to focus today on a couple of ensemble members who haven’t had much stage time. First, we messed with our cast list a little, since it turned out that the woman who was cast as the Prince had only said “maybe,” and, after she thought more about it, did not want to play that part after all. We’ve recast her as Balthasar, and the woman who was playing Lady Montague is now playing the Prince.

We began our scene work with the Tybalt/Capulet exchange in Act I Scene V (the “party scene”). After going through it once, we went a bit deeper into the characters. The woman playing Tybaltjoined the group rather recently and missed our reading of the first half of the play, so we had to catch her up a bit – although she has been working on the script a lot on her own. I asked her what she knows so far about Tybalt. “Well, he’s an a—hole,” she said. We laughed, but then I suggested that, while an outside perspective that he’s a jerk is completely fine, as an actor playing a character, it won’t help her to judge him. We likened it to our own experiences of being labeled and judged by people who don’t know our entire story – something I don’t need to preach to this group about. She re-framed her feelings as, “He thinks he’s better than everyone else,” which is a great starting point for this character. She then asked for clarification on Tybalt’s last speech, saying, “I know he’s angry, but I don’t know exactly what he’s saying.” We went through it with her and talked about focusing on a character’s objective, not trying to play an emotion. The woman playing Capulet is struggling, meanwhile, to find the extremes in her character – a jovial party animal who changes to threats of violence on a dime, and back again. He must foreshadow his violent nature in this scene, but finding the best way to do it is a challenge. We kept playing with the scene, one of the women suggesting, “Go too far! If you REALLY go too far, we’ll bring you back,” which is something I often say when directing or teaching acting. The scene is on its way.

We then moved on to the Prince’s monologue at the end of Act I Scene I. The woman playing this part turns out to have a very powerful voice, which surprised and thrilled us all, but she also tends to smile a lot when she’s nervous. We worked on getting her to stop smiling and stand her ground more. I asked her to consider how she would talk to people over whom she has absolute power when they are threatening her community through their behavior. “It's like you're the warden,” said one of the women. This analogy proved to be a great one because it’s nearly a direct parallel. The stakes were raised, and the woman’s performance grew more distinct and powerful. One of the women also reminded all of us that pausing at punctuation would help, since this participant is a “fast-talker,” and this is something we’ll continue to work with.

This was a very positive, productive session. We are all hoping for no more crazy weather so we can really get into a groove!