Session Three: Week 11

Tuesday  

We welcomed some new members to the group today. A couple of them said that they weren’t completely sure they would stay, but were willing to try it out. That’s good enough for us! We’ll see how it goes.

After orientation, introductions and warm ups, we sat in a circle to read and discuss Act III Scene II, in which the Nurse tells Juliet of Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment. This scene is remarkably straightforward, and the women immediately understood and identified with the grief and anger expressed by both characters. They noted that in the opening monologue, “Gallop apace…”, Juliet doesn’t seem scared – she is bold and excited: a teenager! They also brought up how she doesn’t completely lose her grip even in her grief: she tries to rationalize how she is feeling, compartmentalize and take control, although she is conflicted.

In trying to get at the emotion in the scene, I led the group through an exercise in which we read some of the lines together, pausing for breath at each punctuation. The two sections we read were:

Nurse:

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo!

... and...

Juliet:

But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, 'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!' There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

“Does that feel familiar?” I asked. “What is going on here?” And the answer came back resoundingly: they are sobbing. This is one of my favorite aspects of Shakespeare – when the text alone, spoken aloud, tells you exactly what is happening in the scene. Many of the women were excited by this – their eyes lit up, especially those new to the group, as this is a prime example of Shakespeare being accessible to everyone, no matter what your background is.

Today was the last day for one of our longtime members, the woman who played Prospero in The Tempest. She was granted parole and will be going home soon. We said goodbye and thanked her for everything she has brought to the group. She likewise thanked us, saying that Shakespeare was one of the things that got her through her time in prison. We will miss having her in the group, as she’s been a wonderful leader and support for everyone, but we are thrilled for her as she takes this huge step.

Thursday

Most of our new members were back today, willing to give it another shot. We were very pleased to welcome them back!

After warm ups and a game, we decided to work more with Act III Scene II, since all we did on Tuesday was to read it. We reviewed the scene, and then pairs of women volunteered to try it on its feet.

The first pair gave a reading that was well informed, but lacking much physicality. Even so, they were moved by the experience and made discoveries. The woman playing Juliet, who was on stage for the first time in her life, remarked that “you can’t help but become Juliet.” She had gotten goosebumps. The woman reading the Nurse deeply felt the character’s conflict in terms of where her loyalties lie. We gave them some constructive criticism and suggestions for how to progress in the scene – what they could do physically, what to focus on – and the scene improved dramatically.

The next pair had a very intense experience. It was also the first time on stage for both of these women. The Nurse was very nervous at first, so nervous that she couldn’t help but smile even as she delivered the line, “He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!” Juliet, however, dove in, her voice shaking with emotion, her body sinking into a chair. She was so moving, in fact, that the Nurse forgot her inhibitions and focused on her scene partner. She then did something with the scene that the facilitators (all trained actresses/directors/teachers) had never seen before. When she said the lines...

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo!

… She put her hand on Juliet’s shoulder, saying it very softly and with the clear objective of comforting her. It worked beautifully. The entire group was deeply moved by their performance and enthusiastic about this first effort.

Two of our other newbies performed as well, but unfortunately we ran out of time before we could give them solid constructive criticism. Even so, today’s experience was positive enough that all of the new members voiced enthusiasm and a desire to stick with the group.

We will not be meeting for the next couple of weeks because of the holidays, so the group set a goal of reading the rest of the play individually, even if they don’t understand all of it, to speed our progress when we come back. Everyone is eager to cast the play and begin working toward performance!

Session Three: Week 10

Tuesday  

We were able to follow through on our plan today, performing the fight for members of the group who weren’t at the last session. The woman who played Romeo on Thursday was not present today, so a woman who had watched and coached the scene took her place. The woman who had played Benvolio suddenly felt awkward, so I took over that part. It’s always been an important aspect of the group that we don’t force people to perform if they’re truly uncomfortable, so I didn’t mind subbing in.

The scene still worked remarkably well. The people who were not there on Thursday, including Matt and Molly, talked about how good the pacing was and how clear most of the relationships were. They were also very impressed by the ability of the woman who played Romeo to jump in, which was due to her being physically present and paying close attention last time.

We moved on to analyze the rest of this scene. A major discussion took place surrounding Benvolio’s monologue, as some of the women felt that he was throwing Romeo under the bus. It turned out that nearly everyone had a different interpretation here for why he tells the story the way he does. Is he telling it in a truly impartial way to the Prince? Not really. Is he guilty that he didn’t get more involved? Is he defending himself from punishment? I honestly have never given that much thought to this piece, and that’s part of what I love about working with Shakespeare with these women – they each have such a unique perspective on the material and are so willing to share and discuss.

Thursday

There was some conflict at the end of the last session, and we spent the beginning of this one touching base to make sure that we are able to move forward as a group and be just as strong as ever. All of the women had constructive input and are confident that the group will continue to thrive.

We reviewed the “party scene” today for clarification’s sake. The dynamics in this scene are incredibly important and definitely merited another look. We talked about the anger expressed by Tybalt and Capulet and the possibilities for where it comes from and how it surfaces. We worked on Romeo’s worship of Juliet the moment he sees her, and then we talked a lot about the Nurse. How does she always seem to know what’s going on? The group settled on that she is a snoop and loves drama. The woman reading the Nurse further speculated that she could be drunk in this scene. Working with that, we found a lot of comedy and further justification for the knowledge she has throughout the scene.

We ran the scene with no stops, and it worked very well. Today was a good day for regrouping, refocusing, and continuing to explore.

Session Three: Week 9

Tuesday  

We explored the next two scenes today – Act II Scenes V and VI. We worked on finding the physicality and energy in these scenes that worked best, finding. We found, for instance, that the more frantic Juliet is to get information, and the more slow-paced the Nurse is in giving it, the funnier the scene is. Likewise, we explored the physicality of the scene in which Romeo and Juliet meet with the Friar, having a good laugh as the woman reading the Friar struggled to keep those reading Romeo and Juliet apart. The group realized that this play truly will work best on its feet if everyone has her lines memorized – where doing The Tempest as more of a staged reading was all right, this play is so much more physical that the scripts are really going to get in the way.

One of the women mentioned that what really gets her about this play is how many opportunities various people have to say, “Stop! This is a bad idea!” But nobody does. We talked a bit about that aspect of the play – the realization that things may go wrong and the abdication of responsibility. It’s a theme that resonates with many in the group, and we will continue to explore it further.

We set a goal to get through our initial reading/analysis of the play by Christmas and to cast it just after the holiday. This will give us a nice, long time to work on it and for people to begin line memorization long before the performance, which we hope will be in July.

Thursday

Though attendance was light today, we determined that we cannot spend Thursdays always reviewing, at least not with the deadline we set ourselves last time. We decided to work the first part of Act III Scene I, the fight scene, and that we would get it to a point where the women present today could perform it for the rest of the group on Tuesday, eliminating the need to spend another entire meeting reading and analyzing it.

This proved to be a lot of fun, and very interesting, exciting work. This scene is my personal favorite in the play, and after today, I don’t think I’ll be the only one. Since the scene is pretty straightforward in terms of the language, we got it on its feet quickly and worked as a team to figure out blocking that suits the language. While this was slow work at first as we worked through the necessary action of the scene and where people need to be on stage to make things work, our pace increased as things became more clear and we all became increasingly excited.

Things really picked up as the women reading Tybalt and Mercutio instinctively began to circle each other at Tybalt’s line, “What wouldst thou have with me?” We trusted that instinct and expanded on it to determine that they needed to make a circle that needs to be close to 360 degrees if not exactly, since none of us would ever have a street fight with the enemy’s gang at our backs. When we began to struggle with the climax of the fight, when Mercutio is stabbed under Romeo’s arm, one of the women jumped up to help the performers according to her vision of how this would work. The rest of the scene came together very quickly.

The women who are new to the group were surprised that this very brief scene took us so long to block, but taking our time was definitely worth it. We had a lot of laughs along the way and left feeling inspired and excited to show the rest of the group what we’ve accomplished on Tuesday.

Session Three: Week 8

Tuesday

Written by Matthew

Today saw Romeo caught between his old identity and his new one.

After a warm-up, we read through Act II, scenes iii-iv.  The women are becoming more confident and fluent in Shakespeare’s language every day, and few passages required explanation beyond what members of the group could immediately provide.

The scenes are short and mostly straightforward, so we read through them in full for the gist before going back to uncover hidden meaning.

In Act II, scene iii, Romeo goes straight from Juliet’s balcony to his confidant, the friar.  The group seemed interests in the language of pain and death in the scene: the friar is gardening when Romeo arrives in the early morning light, and he muses on Earth’s ability to bring forth both beautiful flowers and harmful poisons from the same soil.  Romeo speaks of being “wounded” by love.  We noted that the friar seems appalled by Romeo’s too-quick transition from loving Rosaline to loving Juliet, at least until he realizes that there may be some greater good served by their union.  Political affairs, one woman noted, have intruded on personal ones.  Such intrusions are rarely for good.

In describing Romeo’s state of mind, one woman said that he “seems still to equate the physical with the emotional,” and that part of the tragedy is Romeo’s inability to differentiate these feelings.

When we put the scene on its feet, the woman who played Romeo paced with child-like ebullience, pestering the staid friar.  The rest of the group applauded this decision: Romeo’s overflowing energy contrasted clearly with the friar’s restraint.

While reading through Act II, scene iv, the women saw Romeo’s lighter side.  The group noticed that Shakespeare presents Mercutio and Romeo’s friendship as it was before Romeo started falling in love.  They exchange bawdy puns, and Mercutio exclaims that this is the “real” Romeo.  Who the “real” Romeo is, the group decided, is unclear.  One member noticed that Romeo, when the nurse comes to find him, gets caught between his “old” self—Mercutio’s devil-may-care sidekick—and his “new” self as a lover and—soon—husband.

On stage, the readers were active, moving around the stage and acting out their dirty jokes and insults.  The women who watched the scene praised them for making the meaning of the words clear through intonation and gesture.

Both scenes leapt off the page with surprising clarity when performed.  One onlooker praised a moment of inspired subtlety, when Romeo’s body language changed completely when Mercutio left.  He was no longer part of the gang, but a man in love.

Thursday

Today there was some conflict that needed to be resolved regarding the reading/performance of certain characters at this stage. While some of the women are gravitating toward particular characters and are eager to read them often, others have not yet found their “favorites” and feel they haven’t had enough opportunities to read. While I feel that we’ve been working toward striking a balance between these two things, we discussed ways to even the playing field even more in the future. Some of this is encouraging those with certain characters in mind to experiment with others, and part is encouraging the women who feel they haven’t read enough to be more assertive about volunteering to do so.

Since attendance was light, we decided to review what we’ve worked on so far, sitting in a circle and reading in a “round robin” – each time a new character entered, the next person over would read him/her, and so on, so that it was completely random as far as who was reading what. This proved to be very valuable, as it shook things up and gave different opportunities to everyone in the circle.

One woman stopped us after the Queen Mab speech to share that she’d had an epiphany – that the woman reading Mercutio at that moment would actually play him very well because she is similarly dominant in conversation and articulate – a strong personality. We discussed that this is one reason why we need to give everyone more opportunities to experiment – she’s not the only one in the group to whom this applies.

It was a constructive day, even with the conflict and the decision to read rather than perform. The group has some great ideas for moving forward and trying some new things, which we will discuss at the next meeting when we hope more people will be present.

Session Three: Week 7

Tuesday

Written by Matthew

“Juliet want Romeo to know that she for real,” was the consensus tonight, as summed up by one of the participants.

We rehearsed the famous scene at Juliet’s balcony.  The language of this exchange is uncharacteristically straightforward, so we were able to jump in quickly and begin discovering more about the characters.  Some women have already set their sights on specific roles, so we have ready volunteers for the lead roles.

Before approaching the scene, though, we warmed up with a game of questions: someone starts by asking a question directly to someone sitting to their left or right.  That person must then, without stopping to think, ask a different question of someone to their right or left—yes, including the person who just asked them.  Since no one answers the questions, it’s more of an improvisation exercise than a “getting to know you” activity.  If you can’t think of a question immediately or break down in laughter, you’re out.  A few women were ruthless, pointedly targeting a neighbor with a barrage of questions.  A few rounds of that, and we were ready to go.

The women first fixated on the fact that Juliet enters the scene by speaking a revealing speech about her feelings for Romeo, ending with the provocative “take all myself.”  We discussed how she was vulnerable in the moment, unaware that Romeo is looking on as she fantasizes.  When Romeo interjects at that moment, she is taken aback as well as overjoyed.

We focused on the intensity of Romeo and Juliet’s feelings for each other and on how they express those feelings in different ways.  Romeo shows his infatuation by waxing poetic about Juliet’s beauty, her sweetness, anything to praise her.  Juliet is more practical, suggesting that they wait.  One woman pointed out that, although Romeo risks his life to see Juliet, she stands to lose more from their forbidden relationship than he.  The women agreed that she must worry about being cast out of her home, about her current betrothal to Paris, and about the fact that Romeo, as a boy, is allowed more free rein than she is at that time.

Two women performed the scene when we were done.  We talked about how Romeo should make his entrance and how Juliet should react.  As they read, the women on stage added their own flair to the conversation, Juliet self-consciously rambling while Romeo waited anxiously to get a word in edgewise.

The scene seems to be fertile ground for staging and character development ideas for the group.  Now, we just have to figure out how to make a balcony.

Thursday

We were delayed getting into the facility today, but the women once again showed their commitment and growing ownership of the group by being very productive while they waited for us. The group warmed up and played two improv games that we have already played this session. The “veterans” then taught the rest of the group two other games that have to do with characterization and physicality.

We then arrived and worked a bit more on the balcony scene. We discussed what Romeo and Juliet want in the scene, and the obstacles that are in their way. The group now feels that they have a firm grasp on the scene, and they are ready to move on.

I am very heartened that the “veterans” took on the task of teaching new games, which is often a challenge even for those of us who teach improv on a regular basis! That they were able to work together to accomplish this speaks volumes about how they already function as a team. We are ready to add some new people to the group and hope to do it soon.