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.

Session Three: Week 6

Tuesday  

We tried a new warm up today, one that comes from Michael Chekhov technique and warms up the whole body while getting one’s energy flowing in all directions. While some people with whom I’ve worked have been resistant to this exercise, this group loved it and requested that we do it regularly from now on.

We determined that, since attendance was rather low last Thursday, the best use of our time today would be to review what was worked on that day. One of the women suggested that we put the scenes immediately on their feet, rather than reading them, to see what those who were new to the scenes could get out of them. We tried this with the scene before the party, which includes Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech. The women said that they were still finding it kind of mystifying, so we broke it down. As with many of these scenes and monologues, we decided that it would really take the actor’s physicality to make this speech work. But what kind of physicality would that be? Another participant suggested that they break up into smaller groups and experiment.

The first group of four women each chose one line to “act out.” They wound up using each other as props, which we all decided would be a good thing for Mercutio to do in the scene. What was remarkable was that each of them memorized her one line in the fifteen minutes we spent working on this. That seemed to instill some confidence in the group that memorization might not be as difficult as they anticipate.

The second group designated one Romeo and then took turns talking to her, using gestures they thought were appropriate, with just one section of the monologue. The whole group liked this approach as well.

The third group didn’t fully commit to their approach because after they saw what the other groups had done, they thought they had misunderstood their goal. We talked about how that could have been an opportunity to improvise rather than to simply go through the motions.

It was a productive day, but we’ll have to do much more work on this speech. I think that’s a very usual challenge to have with this play!

Thursday

After warm ups, we worked on three line scenes, led by Sarah. The women got better and better at this exercise as we kept working, and they can all see how this exercise in particular will help them in performance.

We reviewed Act I Scene V, the “party scene.” After we read it through, one woman asked why Capulet is okay with Romeo being there. We discussed some ideas – maybe he’s NOT okay with it, but he doesn’t want a fight at his party; perhaps he is protecting Tybalt; or maybe he’s just so drunk he doesn’t care. Another question posed was how nobody sees what happens between Romeo and Juliet. We talked about how important blocking would be here, but how we could also use a theatrical device to make it work better – perhaps everyone except the two of them either freezes or moves in slow motion, for example.

We put the scene on its feet, and it was very nice. The women who read Romeo and Juliet gave a very quiet, vulnerable reading. The woman who read Romeo has done a lot of reading so far, but she said this was the most connected she had felt to the text and the other actors. This was a good opportunity to talk about how sometimes a very large performance isn’t necessary, and how we really liked how sweet and simple their reading had been.

One of the women said that she has read through the whole play and feels an intense connection to the Nurse. She feels that she has a lot in common with the character and is very eager to play her. I don’t think that will be a problem for anyone – we’re all very excited when we see people making those connections.