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.