Session Three: Week 25

Tuesday  

As people arrived today, one of the women shared that she’s been saying her lines wherever she happens to be, as they occur to her, and that usually people know what she’s talking about. She’s been really excited and amused by that!

We spent most of our time working on Act III Scene V today, in which Romeo leaves Juliet, Lady Capulet tells her that she must marry Paris, Capulet loses it, and both Lady Capulet and the Nurse abandon her. We have already worked the first part of the scene with the young lovers, but we took the opportunity to clarify a couple of things in the lines (and to cut some of the lines!).

We talked a bit about Lady Capulet in this scene – when she reasons with Juliet about her crying, is she really talking about herself to a certain extent? There is also a fairly abrupt shift between talk of revenge against Romeo and the coming marriage. The woman playing Lady Capulet took a moment here to take a deep breath, and we all laughed. She thought maybe she had done something wrong – but the reason we laughed was that it was so real! It was a great moment for her.

We got into the brutality of the scene – Capulet must really be terrifying for these women to abandon Juliet so quickly. We worked on some staging that will allow the woman playing Capulet to intimidate and frighten the others without actually striking them, and we worked out where Lady Capulet and the Nurse first try to intervene and then back off.

We left with this group having the goal of memorizing this scene within one week so that we can cement staging that is difficult to pull off while holding scripts. It will also provide a nice challenge and a short term goal.

Thursday

Today we got to work right away on the end of Act III Scene I, the “fight scene.” The woman playing Benvolio, who is rather new to the group, had questions about his motivations here: is he snitching? Setting the record straight? Something else?

We had a great opportunity to work on this, since our Prince was present as well. Her greatest challenge is nervousness which makes her smile at inappropriate moments on stage. With her working toward the Prince’s anger at what has happened and desire to be just, and Benvolio working toward telling a story that would be honest and still not get him in hot water, we made a lot of progress. Everyone needs to work on slowing down their deliveries, but the scene is more or less working.

We then spent some time learning basic fencing with our foam swords. This was a lot of fun, with some of the women being more natural at it than others. Still, the vibe was one of encouragement, and we’ll keep working at it.

Following this, we worked on the opening scene of the play. The women are having a difficult time accessing the “tough guy” attitudes of the characters, and we will have to keep building on what we did today, which merely began to crack it.

The women mentioned that, while they are working on memorizing their lines, they wish they had more time together to work. We are looking into the possibility of adding one meeting per week through the end of the session – this would also enable us to make up lost time from when the weather prevented us from getting to the facility this winter.

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Session Three: Week 24

Tuesday  

Written by Matthew

We covered three scenes of Act IV today, working quickly through dialogue and Juliet’s soliloquy.

There was a significant delay getting in. When I walked into the space, the women were just finishing warmups, and were ready to go.

Juliet and Lady Capulet wanted very badly to check some numbers off our list of unrehearsed scenes. We realized last week that we had not rehearsed most of Act IV, so that seemed a logical place to start. Beginning with Act IV, scene ii, we ran through the night of Juliet’s apparent death. The scenes almost run together, as she seemingly acquiesces to her father’s wishes, contemplates her future, and drinks the potion that puts her to sleep.

We spent a lot of time working on the tone for Juliet’s soliloquy, in which she worries about the consequences of taking the potion. The speech begins with concrete fears—will she know where she is? Will she be alone?—and ends with fantastical fears of her relatives rising like zombies from the grave to tear at her body. Juliet initially wanted to cut the speech down, but realized after inspecting the lines that it really needed to be full-length.

The morning after Juliet takes the potion, the nurse and her parents find her. The hardest thing for the women to do was to specify their reactions to the sight. Instead of reflexively wailing and running about, the women in the audience encouraged our characters to develop a reaction specific to their persona. Lady Capulet withdraws. Capulet worries about the public consequences. The nurse runs to find medical supplies and blankets and pillows—anything to help.

Though our work today was short, we tackled a large section of text, and took a step closer to completing our first-round rehearsals of the play.

Thursday

Written by Sarah

We began the rehearsal with a further discussion of costumes props and set design.  The first decision was that our backdrop would be painted black with gold lettering.  We decided the words on the backdrop will come from our "word storm".  So we word-stormed...  The ensemble called out words which Romeo and I wrote on the chalk board.  The words and phrases included lines from the play, and themes and ideas that resonate for them.  Some words and phrases from our word storm...

Courage

Rebellion

Saucy Boy

Love

Passion

Tragedy

Happiness

Family

Peace

Death

Holy Matrimony

Sweet Sorrow

Loyalty

Anger

Evil

Blood

Marriage

Strife

Romance

Enemies

Rage

Beauty

Misguided

Star Crossed Lovers

Feud

Fight

Defiance

Discouraged

Unity

Young Love

Religion

Friends

Wedding

Secrets

Trust

Pain

Destiny

Verona

Betrayal

Romeo

Juliet

Death

Mutiny

Minister

Montague

Capulet

One moment can change a life

Love at first sight

Banished

Til Death do us part

Senseless

Love sick

Two houses both alike…

After our word storm we returned to costume ideas.  It was decided that the Montagues’ color will be green, the Capulets’ purple, and all others will be gold. Our Juliet also volunteered to create a props list and be in charge of props.

After adding some costume elements to the wish list we warmed up our voices and bodies and our sense of ensemble and play. We did stretches, tongue twisters, and Theater games.

Then we got down to script work.  Being without our Friar Lawrence, the ensemble has cast a new actress in the role.  We worked on Act II Scene IV with Romeo and our new Friar.  We also worked briefly on the wedding scene with Romeo, Juliet, and the Friar.  The ensemble had strong ideas of how the scenes should play (being used to the actress who had been in the role).  They gave a lot of direction but were also wonderfully supportive of the new actress and quite sincerely encouraged her to "make the role her own.”

This week we worked hard on OBJECTIVES.  The ensemble worked together to figure out what people wanted from each other in the scene.  When the actors started playing their objectives (in other words - worked to get what they want) we all noted how beautifully the scene grew.  The whole ensemble is thrilled with where the scene is now and so proud of the actors for the hard work they did.  They were effusive in their praise for their cast members.  As we reflected at the end of rehearsal, I asked the cast to commit to deciding on their objectives for their roles in each scene they play.

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Session Three: Week 23

Tuesday  

Written by Matthew

Tonight we had low turnout, but the women who showed up were ready to go!

We even had a couple of new members, who had come into the group after spending a long time on the waiting list. They jumped right into our exercises and seemed to enjoy time on the stage. They were a natural fit for the program.

We began with an energetic warm-up—including a round of Dr. Know-It-All in which our newest members readily participated—then decided that the best thing to do was rehearse a scene we hadn’t looked at before.

The scene we chose was Act I, scene iv, origin of Mercutio’s baffling “Queen Mab” speech. The chemistry of Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio was fun and energizing for all. In the scene, they are making their way to the Capulets’ party. Benvolio and Mercutio played up their excitement, which allowed Romeo to drag his feet comically.

A woman commented while we worked that the first two acts of the play really are a comedy, which helped inform our choices in this early scene. There is no hint yet of the devastating fate that awaits our characters. In the spirit of comedy, Romeo played up his heartsick moaning, while Mercutio experimented with several ways of delivering his big speech.

After we tried several ideas—most of which simply ended with Mercutio pacing frantically on stage while the other two watched—we decided that Mercutio should deliver the speech to the audience. Not only to the audience, in fact, but in the audience.

This day, we solidified the relationship between Mercutio, Benvolio, and Romeo. The women had some time to enjoy the friendship before it gets tarnished by death and despair.

Thursday

Written by Sarah

We started our day with a good physical, vocal, and focus warm-up.  We added a new vocal/improv warm up into our mix that integrates voice, body, and improv.  The ensemble responded really well to it and helped out when I forgot the lines!  As always, showing empathy and patience and team work...

We settled into a discussion of costumes where almost everyone had a strong sense of what they should wear to support their work in their role.  Our Tybalt has requested a belt as she is a fighter and will need a place to hold her sword.  Our Lady Montague has requested a crown to allow her to enter into the regal mindset.  Romeo wants preppy khakis or dress pants to help her feel Romeo's privilege.  The women are still thinking about whether the back drop wants to be representational and show Verona or whether they would like it to be a collage of words that convey the themes of their Romeo and Juliet.

After our costume and set discussion we worked on the Crypt death scene with Paris, Romeo, Juliet and Friar Lawrence.  At first Romeo and Juliet were working very hard to make themselves FEEL the scene.  They kept saying, "I need to be more emotional."  It was clear that it was not clicking for them.  We stopped and we asked them not to "act" it.  We asked them to forget about what they thought they should feel.  We asked them to focus instead on what they WANT and WHERE they are in the scene.  Juliet and Romeo know their characters and the scenes well and, of course, knew what they wanted.  They could imagine how being in the crypt with dead loved ones affected them as teenagers.

We promised them that Shakespeare's language will do all the "emotion" work for you as long as you know what you want and where you are.  We asked them to just say the words and try to get what they want.  We were hoping they would trust that the scene would play that way.  They dove in with great courage and TRUST and very simply played the scene while trying to get what they wanted.  And all the emotion was there.  They played the scene so beautifully and simply and it was heartbreaking and true.

One of the most valuable gifts that acting bestows is trust.  Trusting your cast mates to be there for you if you mess up.  Trusting your audience will respect you and go on a journey with you.  And most importantly, trusting yourself - trusting that you are enough and what is true in you is enough and you do not have to make yourself feel something to act, the feeling will happen if you listen to and work with and open your heart to another person.

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