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!

Session Three: Weeks 13 and 14

Unfortunately, this very cold and snowy January has caused us to miss several sessions! Here are updates from the two most recent meetings of the group.  

Week Thirteen

After missing another day due to weather, we convened ready to cast the show. We came at it in the same way that I normally would as a director, although of course this was a group effort: We went through all of the characters and listed every person in the group who might be a good fit for each of them. We narrowed it down from there, checking in with individuals to be sure that they felt good about playing whatever role was being discussed.

This took about an hour and a half, but there was no real conflict to speak of. Any time something came up – two people very interested in the same role, for example – a member of the group would speak up with some insight or an opinion, and we would resolve the issue together. The cast list we ended up with fits the group very well, although there are some holes which we will strive to fill with new members. The process went through with a focus on the group as a whole, not just individuals, and with a lot of respect. We were all pretty pleased.

Week Fourteen

Written by Matthew

At last, the reading is done!

We had an unexpectedly short day on Tuesday because of a lockdown.  An ambulance needed to enter the prison grounds, which stopped all activity for about an hour.  Guests and prisoners were asked to stay where they were.

By the time the prison gave the “all clear” and everyone was through security, less than an hour remained in our program time.

The participants—a core group of eight or so was present—had already warmed up and begun reading the long final scene of the play.  They read through the scene without stopping or commenting.  Upon finishing the scene, they immediately focused on two questions: why does no one react strongly to Friar Lawrence’s confession, and who is to blame?  The women found that Friar Lawrence bears significant responsibility for bungling the operation, though the families, of course, started the whole thing.

Most excitingly, a few women who do not usually volunteer to read were given major parts, and the group was extremely complimentary about their reading.  Perhaps for this reason, a participant who has demurred every time she’s offered a significant role volunteered—with some prodding—to play Friar Lawrence when we acted out the scene.  She played the part beautifully, and everyone agreed it was a big step forward for her.

On its feet, the scene proved challenging.  The women decided only to read from Romeo’s entrance into the Capulet crypt to Juliet’s suicide, but even that section was difficult to stage.  An onlooker observed that Romeo doesn’t recognize Juliet’s betrothed, Paris, until he’s already dead.  This makes Romeo’s violent reaction to his presence puzzling.  The woman reading Juliet pointed out that Juliet doesn’t notice the bodies of Paris and Romeo—dead at her feet—until the friar points the bodies out, which makes choosing a place for Romeo and Paris to die challenging.

Still, they were determined to get it right and, when they encountered a problem, the participants often decided to backtrack a bit and fix it rather than plowing ahead.  Each challenge started a good conversation about the effect of blocking on the dramatic impact of the performance.

After running through part of the scene, it was already time to leave.  We closed up the auditorium and trudged back to our units and homes.

Session Three: Week 12

Thursday  

After a longer-than-anticipated hiatus due to our lovely Michigan weather, the group reconvened today eager to get to the next phase of the process. The consensus was that, while they enjoy reading through a scene and then putting it on its feet, they have a pretty good handle on the language now and want to just read the rest of the play, only staging things they don’t understand (if anything), and then cast it and begin working toward their performance.

So we read through the remainder of the play, up until the final scene, which is lengthy. Below are some notes I took from our brief discussions of these scenes, all of which were straightforward enough that no one felt the need to put them on their feet at this point.

Act III, Scene iii

• One woman said she “loves this scene,” and most of the others agreed. They feel that it is a clear and dramatic turning point for all of the characters in it.

Act III, Scene iv

• Capulet seems to live in his own world, doing whatever he wants. This is exemplified by his desire to hasten the wedding of Juliet and Paris, despite the family’s grief over the loss of Tybalt.

Act III, Scene v

• As we read this scene aloud, there were repeated vocal reactions to Capulet’s abusive language. The things he says to Juliet especially, but also to his wife and the Nurse, are crystal clear even hundreds of years later. No need for interpretation here.
   
• The women discussed that Capulet goes from zero to sixty in his rage.
   
• There was also a discussion about Juliet’s situation – she is a cloistered, naïve teenager, so how can we understand her actions in that context as she’s abandoned by all three of her “parental units” within minutes?

Act IV, Scene i

• Why does the Friar choose such a complicated plan? Why not just take Juliet to Mantua? Or send a message to Romeo immediately telling him what’s going on? Why all the secrecy and plotting?
   
• Why doesn’t Juliet just leave? The women believe that, beyond her being sheltered and inexperienced, Capulet is very powerful and has eyes everywhere, like a modern day Mafia boss.

Act IV, Scenes ii and iii

• The grief of the characters is very obvious here, but the women were confused about the extent to which people who show little care for Juliet previously would be grieving now. This is definitely going to merit further exploration once we’re cast, since there are some clues in the text, but many of the women aren’t buying that the Capulets actually love their daughter.
   
• One woman pointed out that the Friar downplays the tragedy and seems to rush everyone to bury Juliet as quickly as possible to keep his plan in motion.

Act V, Scene i

• We discussed Romeo’s assertion that money is poison, and that the Apothecary commits a crime to abate his poverty, and not because he is inherently a criminal.

The plan now is to cast the play at our next meeting and begin to stage it from there. The women asked for a detailed “rehearsal schedule,” which I’ve made, always with the caveat that we know we’ll have to be flexible. Everyone is very excited to get on with it!