Pre-writing

Introduction: 

  a. background information about the play, author, the scene I played

  b. reason about any change from the original scene

Critical analysis of literary features of text:

  a. brief summary of the plot

  b. brief flashback: reflection while reading this scene (institutive feelings about Juliet) 

  c. Juliet’s personality, change (corresponding with direct quotes + analysis) 

How text informed choices made in scene: 

  a. staging & blocking (props, costumes)

  b. choices of acting: voice, tone, emotion, body language 

                                   (refer to the literary features analysis — Juliet’s characteristic, feelings)

                                   

Reflection/critique/analysis of own performance: 

  a. reflection after I played 

  b. reflection while watching the video (any improvements could be made)

Bushnell Review

  Watching the Warrior’s Don’t Cry is really an amazing experience. It is a one-woman play, which describes a story of Melba who was one of the students chosen to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School during the period of racism segregation. The play vividly shows a transition of Melba, who is scared at first, but gradually stands up, acting as a warrior, fighting for their civil rights battle with her strength and courage, and eventually leads the Little Rock Nine toward victory after experiencing a series of hardship. 

  As what I mentioned above, it is a one-women play. That is also the most incredible lesson I learn — how the only one actor’s performance carries the entire show. There are some significant techniques were implied by the actor in order to help the audience more clearly distinguish the different characters. By using the body language and voice, the actor builds up distinct image corresponding to different characters. For example, when she imitates her grandma, she would become humpbacked, elbows bent with one hand on her hips, and speaks with a kind of more husky voice. Just because of the fixed gesture and voice for different characters, the audience has a clear understanding of what is going on, as well as creating a somehow easier way for the actor to memorize the great amount of lines I believe. By memorizing the lines along with the body language, she can clearly distinguish which one is which. Once again, I realize how important body language is not only from my own performance in the Romeo and Juliet. Body language is like the best prop used by the actors to convey what they want to say to the audience. 

  Despite the wonderful performance, I am also a little surprised by the “plain” stage set. There is only one desk, one chair, a bench, and a cup of water, a diary, and a pen on the desk. The simple stage set creates a lot of difficulties for the actor’s performance because as the plot goes on, the place also keeps changing. Thus, once again, the actor has to use her body language, lines, tone and voice to tell the audience the different blocking. However, the only props on the stage also were widely used by the actor: sometimes she sits on the bench; sometimes she stands on it. 

  Overall, it is hardly not to say how difficult and incredible the whole play is. Not only including the large amount of lines that the actor needs to memorize, but also the many characters the actor needs to portray and the few amount of props can be used by the actor, all of these increase the performing difficulties to some extent. 

Scene Reflection

  After three weeks long rehearsal and twice run through on the stage, we finally shoot our final scene, which came out not as well as what I expected but way much better than our first run through. I would make a conclusion about some points where I have made progress as well as where I could make more improvements in the following paragraphs. 

  The biggest mistake I made during the performance was my “uncontrollable” mood, which eventually stimulated a series of problem. Firstly, it was because that I was too sleepy on the Monday morning. I tried multiple times to get into Juliet’s mood before recording, but with continuously dozing, I was too drowsy to exactly switch my mind into Juliet’s form. Also, I was too nervous for being under the invisible pressure of the final scene; I cannot focus pure on Juliet, but can’t stop with being disturbed by numerous things. As a result, I made some pauses and sometimes I was incoherent, like where I was saying “Tell me not, Friar, that thou hearest of this” or “Could to no issue of true honor bring”. Despite the fluency, the volume, clarity and pronunciation also were not well controlled. Sometimes, I spoke too fast — “which the commission of thy years and art  … ”, which somehow interrupted the whole pace, and I could hear that my pronunciation was not that clear enough to tell the audience. Same for the speaking tone, I did pay attention to those points where were pointed out in the feedback of the last run through. For example, when I say “Give me, give me, tell me not of fear”, I should express my hopeful feeling, and my voice should sound determined while saying the last line “Farewell, dear father”. However, I paid too much attention on these several parts to ignore the other mood. Juliet actually had a mood transition in this scene. She appeared near despair at the beginning, but while facing the nearly hopeless situation, she still showed her determined loyalty to Romeo. And then, the “glimmer of hope” gave by Friar raised her hope, but her minds was ver complicated because that “hope” needed her to risk her life. Fear appeared in her minds, but it was soon overwhelmed by her love, which made her eventually become determined again. However, the whole process of transition was not clearly performed by me, instead, my performance just grasped some of those points like “being hopeful” or “being determined”. It was not a complete mood transition, but disconnected. And eventually, those “highlighted” points, where I showed my feelings through my emotion, tone or body language, might make the audience be confused about: why those strong emotions suddenly came out? 

  Overall, I would not say it was a better performance than our last rehearsal because I did said the lines more fluent than this time. But on a positive perspective, we did made many improvements from the more complete blocking to the more body language and the more details about the character’s feelings that we did tried to convey. The whole process of doing this project continuously cultivated our ability of self-learning and self-improvement. From the first time we stepped into a character’s world, then tried to fit in, and finally we left without leaving anything. 

Research on Warriors Don't Cry

  Warrior’s Don’t Cry is a play adapted from the memoir by Dr. Melba Pattillo Beals. It describes a story of Melba Pattillo, a young girl who was one of the students chosen to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School after the actions of Arkansas’ Governor Faubus in 1957. The Little Rock Nine were those students who attempted to the Arkansas’ first attempt at integration in public schools. Melba was scared at first, but being greatly influenced by her strong and loving family, she was acted as a warrior, fighting for a civil rights battle with her incredible courage and strength throughout being taunted, threatened, attacked and even injured by the opposition. The Little Rock Nine eventually won after experiencing the hardship. 

  The play was produced by the Bushnell Centerfor the Performing Arts, and co-written by Zita Christian and Scott Galbraith. It has been performing in New York City and throughout New England all over the world. 

  References: 

- http://allreaders.com/book-review-summary/warriors-don-t-cry-39118

- http://www.zitachristian.com/warriors_don_t_cry___the_play__112706.htm

Review of the fall play

  The Dead is a musical adaptation based on the short story The Dead from the collection Dubliners written by James Joyce. The play begins with an annual Christmas party, where a family and their friends are chatting, singing, dancing and having dinner, but at some given moments, more and more epiphanies come out from people’s minds. The surface of the world of play is filled with peacefulness, but underneath that, is only the endless sorrow left.
       The great comparison existing between the two extremes was vividly showed throughout the actors’ performance. Although I did not have a background information about this story nor the author, by watching only the actors, I can be brought into the story and empathize with the characters. I did learned many acting skills, which can be applied into my final performance. The first thing I caught up from the show was that the actors never increase their speed of speaking. They may slow down their speed or change their volume while expressing different kinds of feelings. Take the main character Gabriel Conroy, who was acted by John, as an example. Approaching the end of the play, where Gabriel Conroy’s epiphany comes, I would say that is his climax. He saw how his wife was crying for a lost love, who died for her, but he never heard about. At that given moment, his minds must be stirred with anger, disappointment, sorrow and confusion. However, when he said the last line “the world … is like the surface …”, he slowed down his speed, every single word was clearly throw out, which somehow strengthened the character’s feelings. That was the skill I need to learn: not rush to say the lines for expressing Juliet’s hopeless at that situation, but oppositely slow down and magnify the intensity. More than that, the many body language was another acting skills I learned. Both from the first rehearsal and the second run through’s feedbacks, our lack of body language was always mentioned. And this time, I saw how important the need of body language is from watching the play. It is like the best and easiest way to convey the actors’ emotions to the audience. For example, in the last scene where Gretta Conroy suddenly sank into sadness, and her husband tried to comfort her. Although, sometimes, I did not really understand some specific lines, but when John knelt upon one knee, and gently pated his wife’s back, his body language just directly told me that he tried to comfort her. That kind of physical touch can be exactly applied in our performance, when Friar tried to comfort Juliet. I would talk with my partner Marinda to add a series of these body language into our scene. 

       Overall, it was a fantastic experience of watching the fall play. I pretty enjoyed being brought into the scene and learned many great lessons from the actors’ amazing performance. 

Performance Blog #3

11/7

We have a memorization quiz of the script today. I think I have memorized those lines pretty well after numerous reading and practice. Memorizing lines well is absolutely very important. We all do not want to “get stuck” during the performance, or try to think about what the next line is with interrupting our natural acting as well as my partner’s. And for now, the thing me and Marinda need to mostly focus on is how to add our character’s feelings into the lines by using different tone, voice, emotions or body language. 

11/8

We do our first run through without script today. It’s worth mentioning that we eventually get our props — an old plastic knife, a small bottle of vial (unknown red solution) and a cross necklace. There are actually two kinds of knives in the props room: a small modern one and a bigger old one. I finally decide to use the second one because the small one looks like the tableware, not threatening enough to be used as a suicide prop, and also the bigger one is more old, fitting that time period. Using these props actually makes our performance more realistic and natural because it can give the audience a better understanding with adding more truthfulness in our performance. Despite the props, we also get many valuable feedbacks at the first run through without script. After the run through last time, we make any improvements such as adding some blocking, like the first scene in which Friar is praying before Juliet knocks the door. Nonetheless, there is still more needed to add, like more physical touch between Friar and Juliet to show how Friar try to comfort Juliet. Specifically for me, I give Juliet more emotions and body movement, which I think is somehow successful at the beginning where I knock the door out loud and rush into the door with shouting my first line “O, shut the door”. However, I do not keep Juliet’s mood till the end. For example, at the end, where I say “give me, give me”, after Friar gives me the portion, I should show more hope in my face. Same for the last line — “Farewell, dear father”— Juliet is very determined for what she would do at that moment. Except my lacking of emotions, another thing I need to pay attention is my talking speed. Although, it is reasonable to speed up when I reach the climax of Juliet’s feelings, I need to make sure that the audience can hear clearly every single word I say on the stage. Therefore, another way of acting shall be applied, rather than talking faster, I can slow down my tempo with maintaining the intensity.  Overall, more time we need to spend with being familiar with our own characters. 

11/10

Today, we start our practice by running the lines to get in character’s mood first. Since Marinda’s lines were cut again, it takes some time for her to get used to it. And I spend my time reading my lines again and again with paying attention to my tempo. For example, at Juliet’s climax — “Be not so long to speak, I long to die” — I try to slow down with keeping the intensity. Trying a new way of speaking is very difficult at first because it is different with the way I am talking usually. But, after repeating several times, I feel way much better. Despite learning the ability of how to control my talking speed, I also practice the distinct tones corresponding to the various feelings. As what I mentioned yesterday, I did not perform Juliet’s feelings of hope which exists in between “give me, give me”. Through today’s practice, I think I do catch the way to express this kind of feeling: widen my eyes and voice up on the word. It is like hopefulness with a little bit excitement. More practice was needed to get through still. 

11/11

For the last practice before the final recording, we decide to watch some videos on the Youtube in order to see how other actors perform Juliet and Friar. There isn't that much videos about this scene. From the videos we watch, I see the different ways of performance. Some of those “Juliet” are very emotional; they really cry. Oppositely, some are pretty calm. I think the emotional one is the Juliet I have been trying to achieve. I feel like showing more strong emotions would be more realistic and easier to tell the audience my feelings. Throughout the three-week long practice, I realize the most challenging part for being Juliet is to get in her mood 10 seconds before the play starts. I need to think about some sad things that really happen. My ultimate goal would be to really cry while performing on the stage. 

Fall Play

Performance Blog #2

10/31

We do the first run-through of our scene today. From other groups’ performances and the feedbacks we get, I do learned a lot, and make a brief summary about the improvements can be progressed in the following. Firstly, while I am saying my lines, I should slow down, and pronounce each word more correctly and clearly in order to make my performance more natural and realistic instead of reading the lines really quick like a machine without emotion. For reaching this goal, I think me and my partner Marinda should do more practice on reading the lines out loud and slowly with following the video in the ebook since both of us are international students. We can find more videos on the Youtube to listen to those actors’ pronunciations in order to correct ours. Secondly, I should have more movements or body language to show Juliet’s feelings like desperation or hopefulness rather than just standing there. Gia and Dilyara’s group leaves me a deep impression on this point: Gia uses many movements like walking around, or stepping forward to Dilyara to show Juliet’s anxiety to hear the news about Romeo; Dilyara also applies many body language like sagging wearily back into the chair to show Nurse’s weariness at the beginning when she just comes back. We might need to further read between the lines as well as watching more videos of others’ performances about this scene so that we can catch up more details and have some natural reactions while saying the lines. Lastly,  we need to figure out many details about blocking that haven't set up yet, like what’s Friar doing before Juliet enters, as well as the props we haven't prepared such as the vail and knife. 

11/1

From a bunch of useful feedbacks we got from yesterday’s performance, we make a discussion on each of those points I listed above. To start our improving progress, we read through the lines over and over again with using the video from the ebook as a reference. We both take some notes in between the lines to further analyze the character’s feelings. For example, since we cut out the previous part about Paris in the scene, Juliet’s feelings would directly reach a climax from the beginning. Thus, at the start, I wrote down “rush into the door with crying — despair and sadness.” It is absolutely going to be very difficult to have such strong and full emotion from the beginning, and that is what I need to focus on practicing. I might need to figure out a way to lead myself into Juliet’s mind before the play. At the end of class, we also were asked to highlight some lines and mark the feelings which exist there, which further help us to understand our character and feel their feelings. 

11/3

Today, we start our practice with a brief run-through of the scene with adding many movements from the notes we wrote down yesterday as well as some pause, specific tone throughout the lines. Besides, we mostly focus on memorizing and writing down the lines. Shakespeare’s language is very tricky. There are many abbreviations or some words like old English such as “when thou hast done so” or “if what thou speak’st speak not or remedy”. It is a great challenge for us to read it fluently as well as memorizing it. But, we almost finished memorizing all the scripts at the end of the class.