Blog13

1）In my opinion, the ending of My Love My Love is tragic. There is a saying in the book that people should stay where they are and never desire things that they can't reach. There is always feud between peasants and riches. No matter how had Ti Moune tries, she wears beautiful dresses and lovely shoes. She stop the gossips about her skin and look from the servant and vendor by using her beauty. Although, she recognized herself as Mademoiselle Desiree Dieu-Donne, the rich people still sees her as peasants. Her position never changes in others' mind. From page 159 in the book " The waiter looked at her strangely. 'A likely story.' He said. 'That peasant girl is now a lady...take care you're not caught and locked up in the crazy house." Then Lucifus throw her out of the hotel. Her position or class never change, the only reason the waiters and servants admire her is their lord Daniel likes her and wants to marry her. However, now Daniel fall in love and wants to marry another woman. Ti Moune become a peasant girl again in others' perspectives.  From page 165 and page 168, Daniel and his father ignore her just like how they ignore other peasants. She become meaningless to Daniel, too. All her efforts of traveling and healing transform to bubbles and disappear. Ti Moune heart broke and died because of pushing and stepping. Never reach where you can't reach, the ending prove this statement again. Therefore, I think this book has a tragic ending.

2) Although, the ending of the book is a tragedy. However, the story still delivers hope. We can not say that Ti Moune never achieve her dream, she's hard-work of traveling and healing got admitted. She can stay with Daniel as long as she want and her beauty attract many people who want to marry her. At that moment, she step out her class and become a Mademoiselle instead of peasant girl. Nonetheless, the girl is too greedy, her desire grows bigger and bigger from stay with Daniel to marry with him. Her desire cause her tragic ending. She refuse to eat and finally she died. The whole book tells people that you should not be greedy. Because of people's greed, the God punish them. Ti Moune lose her family because of that. Her sacrifice spirit and hard-work touch God and let her achieve her dream of stay with Daniel and live in a bigger city, but her desire and greed destroy herself. Therefore, the book teach us do not be greedy and hard-work and never give up can help you achieve your dream.

Questions

Why Ti Moune try to captive the butterfly? What does the disappearance of butterfly means?

Why there are always old lady trying to help Ti Moune? Who do you think they are and why?

How will Daneil father react to Ti Moune after he come back from France and which side is Daniel going to stand for?

Why gods disappear(except PapaGe) when Ti Moune is in hotel?

Blog #12

That’s How a Father Should Be

Up to now, as I read more about the book My Love, My Love the more I like about the character Tonton Julian. Most of the characters in the book are kind of selfish. For example, Ti Moune who put all her heart on Daniel, but doesn’t care about what trouble she may bring to her family; Gods fighting with each other and care less about what disaster they may bring to normal people; Peasant who’s greed cause the anger of the god... However, Tonton Julian is the only rational one who always people he love with kind and support.

Tonton is just a normal poor peasant who sometimes complaint about the hardship of life. He is a practical person not like Mama who is usually optimistic. Tonton is also a very rational person which is another reason I like him. On page 34 in the book Tonton Julian thought that: “When the heads and hearts of fools and children are filled with the image of gods and ghosts, what room is there for reason?” This sentence shows that Tonton has his own perceive and decision but not believe in gods blindly. Although, Tonto is such a rational and practical person, because of his love to Ti Moune, he accept the irrational decision Ti Moune made of taking care of Daniel. He doesn’t want to disappoint her. Also When Ti Moune talk about her dream and plans of leaving village and seeking for Daniel, Tonton support her dream. He believe that everything is possible in the future. Because of that he run into a argument with Mama Euralie. On page 63 in the book: “ Ti Moune is our treasure...How can we live without her?... Treasure that need constant watching have already been lost... Real joy only comes in the future.” Although Mama loves Ti Moune so much, she still has her own selfishness that is keeping Ti Moune with her all the time. She loves and cares about Ti Moune a lot, but also limits Ti Moune’s future. However, Tonton loves Ti Moune a lot, too, but he also realized that Ti Moune is not a normal girl, she should seek for her dream and happiness instead of staying in a poor village. He is the only person in the book who support Ti Moune’s dream except gods who support the girl for other secret reasons and plans. I admire him. Notwithstanding Tonton is just a poor uneducated old peasant, he is benighted like other peasants who believe in god blindly. He also show his love to Ti Moune by supporting her dreams and wishes. That’s how a father should be. Like a mountain, dignified, sliently, but always support its child with on their back.

As you can see, that is reason why I think Tonton Julian is my favorite character. He represents how a good father should be in my mind!

Question 4

In my opinion, Desiree is a girl that differ from all the other peasants. Her thoughts is not limited in a small village but wish for a bigger place---city. In order to model this character which combine the characteristic of imaginative, outsider, dreamer and a member of peasant village, I think her cloth should be the most important part that separate her from other peasants. 

First, She should wear the similar dress as other peasants, because they can not afford the high quality clothing. However, because of the girl’s dream and desire, the cloth should be also different from other peasants’ cloth. It is plain but clean and tidy, other than those muddy and messy cloth peasant wear. Normally, peasant won’t care how tide and nice their cloth is, especially in the season that lack of the water. Also, the girl will decorate herself with flowers and leaves such as flamboyants, azaleas which shows that her mind is not full of planting and living, but also dreams for better life and things. She should have a butterfly figure sew on her back with pitch. It represent her dreams, wishes and desire for freedom. The butterfly is pitched shows the connection with the peasant life.

I will also make connection of the girl’s costume with God, because the girl’s name is called god’s gift and the god represent a significant role in girl’s life. I think that the butterfly is the message deliver between the girl and God, therefore I put a butterfly figure on the girl’s cloth. The butterfly receive the girl’s wish and deliver it to God, and the God make her wish comes true. Therefore, I think the girl’s costume should be plain because she is poor, but also tidy and with decorations because of her different characteristic than other peasants.

Blog 11

The Imagination Create Gods

In my opinion, gods should be in the form of nature. Going back to the ancient age, people are afraid of things they can not understand, such as flood, hurricane, drought. They can not explain the reason why these super nature things happen, so they attribute them to something they imagine which is much more powerful than them which they called as god. In addition, they are both admire and fear of the power of the god. Therefore, they pray and offer sacrifices to god wanting of their benediction. If the weather goes well, they see it as gods’ blessing. If the weather get worse, they think that gods are mad at them. That is because they don’t realize the reason behind the change of climate.

Asaka, the god of earth, of plants, of all growing things. I think the color that fit her most must be green which represent the vivid environment on the ground. In another point of view, I think that gods should not have a exact form. For example, Asaka can be a piece of leaves on the tree, a blooming flower in the plain, a majestic mountain... Therefore, in order to design a costume for her, the green can be the major color on her dress. Her dress should mode up with different type of green leaves. There should be colorful flower symbol around her neck, wrist, and ankle. In addition, a mountain tattoo should exist on her forehead. These symbols represent that Asaka is fickle, she is the combination of people’s imagination toward the nature. When the character speaks, audience can hear the music of birds’ twittering and the whistle of wind passing among trees. The lightening also turns to green and bright to distinguish the character.

Agwe, the god of water and the sea. Blue should take over most of the space on his costume. His costume should be form by waves shape pattern. Also there should be different kind of fish symbols all over his body. On his back the waves pattern should be a darker blue and bigger than waves in his front which represent his changeable mode; the sea is not always calm, but full of dangerous variation. People should not be surprised that a sunny day without clouds can turn into a foreshadowing of tsunami that’s why people are afraid and admire the god, because they can not understand where that power comes from. They feel that all these disaster happen because of a stronger creature which is god. When Agwe smile, audience can hear the the flow of the brook. When Agwe is angry, audience can hear the sound of rainstorm and lightening. The light turns blue while Agwe is on the stage.

PapaGe, the god of Death. He represent human’s biggest fear which is the end of their lives. Therefore, he should be full of mystery, because no one knows what comes after death. In that case, black fits him most which represent mystery and horror. He should wear a black cloak coer his whole body. His voice should be deep and raucous. When he stays on the stage the light should turns down.

Erzuile, the god of love. In my opinion, red fits her most, because it represent love, heart, and passion. Her cloth should be filled with symbols of heart. She should be cover under gauze which shows that love is also vague, tangle, and mystery. In addition, she should wear a dark red shoes which also tells audience that love sometimes accompany with sacrifice. She should speak in a euphony. The light become brighter when she comes u to the stage which makes a comparison with PapaGe.

As you can see, that is my opinion of god should look like wear staging them in a scene. They are colorful and different because they represent abundant imagination people have!

pictures of different flora

Final Draft

Literature and Performance Written Coursework: Analysis of Performance based on Act II Scene II, Act III Scene III, and Act V Scene III from “Romeo and Juliet”

Examination Session: SL Literature and Performance 

Title of the play: “Romeo and Juliet”

Word Count: 1734

Written Coursework: Analysis of Performance based on Act II Scene II, Act III Scene III, and Act V Scene III from “Romeo and Juliet”

After I finished reading the play version of Romeo and Juliet, I became interested in finding out why Romeo and Juliet has such a tragic ending. Therefore, I decided to act out the play. In that way I can understand the play better by substituting myself into the story and feeling the same way the characters do. The play is about the love between two teenagers from two hostile families whose pullback from their families caused their impulsive actions. They finally died together and reconciled the anger from both families. Because their extreme love, which made them ignore things happened around them but only focus their attention on each other, they could even die for each other only to show how they were in love. I found out that ignoring the foreshadowing may be one of the reasons why the tragic ending happens. Therefore, I want to dig deep into the foreshadowing part of the play and discover the start of this anguished story. My partner Julie and I picked three scenes to present our ideas which were Act II Scene II, Act III Scene III, and Act V Scene III. I acted as  Romeo throughout the play. My partner Julie acted as Juliet and Friar Lawrence throughout the play. In the performance, we used music, varying volume, props, and costumes to emphasize how important the foreshadowing is, and the how tragedy happens because Romeo and Juliet ignore the foreshadowing.

In Act II Scene II, I used costuming and emphasis of foreshadowing to show how Romeo ignored the story's obvious warnings because of the extreme love. I wore a black and white shirt from the era of the play to represent Romeo. The black refers to the future tragedy which Romeo and Juliet will face. The white alludes to the pure love between Romeo and Juliet - a love too pure and untainted that cannot hold anything but love. It is this extreme love that distracts them from anything else, including the foreshadowing. The lines I picked present the idea that Romeo disregards protecting his life, because he will do everything to stay with his lover, Juliet. For example, Romeo said, “My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” This proclamation expresses a feeling that Romeo doesn’t care about his death, but is only concerned with desire for Juliet. Before Romeo's declaration, Juliet warned him that, “If they see thee, they will murder thee.” Ignoring the warning, Romeo holds to his belief that his life is not as important as Juliet’s love. The combination of pointed costuming and relevant passages helped to indicate the reason why characters ignore the obvious warning. 

I also added sound effects to the play to exaggerate the foreshadowing part of the lines. In preparation, my partner and I look through hundreds of songs and listened to advice from the audience. My partner and I chose a soft and smooth music called “Symphony No.101 by Chris Parker” as the background. The romantic music fit perfectly with the scene where Romeo and Juliet talk about how they love each other. When they talk about the foreshadowing words, we change the music to “Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner,” which is a rapid and depressing song. It indicates that something bad is about to happen. In my opinion, the key to making a play realistic and entertaining is adding emotion. In that case, I think music really helps me to act emotionally, because the process of acting with emotion will be a lot easier when you follow the flow of music. For example, when I play romantic music, it is easy to speak of things like love and heart. With some facial expressions like smiling and watching each others’ eyes while speaking, the audience can feel the romance brought out by the music. In addition, when the music is rapid and depressing, words like death and sorrow fit perfectly. It not only helped me to manifest my emotion, but also gave the audience a psychological hint that something bad is about to happen. In addition, I will shake my hand and smile when the depressing music plays to show that I ignore the warning of my death, because it is not as important as Juliet’s love. My use of music help me to emphasize the foreshadowing words.

In Act III Scene III, I highlight the ignorance of the foreshadowing by showing Romeo’s attitude between love and death by using the help of music and body languages. For example, Romeo said that, "Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death...Much more than death.” In Romeo’s mind banishment is a much crueler thing than death. He prefers death to banishment because he can’t stand the pain of never seeing Juliet again. In order to comfort him, Friar Lawrence advised him to, “Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.”  However, Romeo closed his ears to this advice, because he is filled with sorrow stemming from leaving Juliet. He was emotional and impulsive, which I portrayed by shouting at Friar Lawrence and crying while speaking. In addition, I made a cutting motion across my throat with my hand when saying the foreshadowing words like “death” to show that Romeo’s lack of concern for and ignorance of the foreshadowing. To him there is nothing as important as Juliet; even his life is meaningless compared to Her. I picked  “Dogs of War” as the song for this scene. It is a rapid and predictive song which fits Romeo's feelings after hearing the news of his banishment. I acted rudely to Friar Lawrence by arguing with him loudly. I also distorted my face to show that Romeo lost control of his emotion. I forced my hands on my head, causing my veins to swell, which appeared like I was trying to hurt myself in response to my regret and sorrow. Romeo's banishment was caused by ignoring the foreshadowing in the first scene, when he refused to listen to Juliet’s warning that her kinsman will find out and try to kill him. Although Romeo lived through the attack of Juliet’s kinsman, he got banished. I muttered the word “death” and  slapped my head at the end of the second scene, which shows the foreshadowing to the last scene. Romeo is not afraid and he is ready to die for Juliet.

In the Act V Scene III, I used props and body language to show that the tragedy happened because of Romeo’s ignorance of the foreshadowing. After I walked into Juliet’s tomb, I stood in front of her and looked at her face for a while; I took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This action shows that Romeo has made the decision and is ready to die with Juliet. This action formed a connection with the second scene when Romeo said to Friar Lawrence that he preferred death to being banished from Juliet. Therefore, when he saw the “death” of Juliet, he felt that his life was vapid and meaningless, he decided that dying with Juliet was the best choice. I took out the "poison," which I replaced with a plastic bottle, and said, "Here’s to my love.” When I said that, my face turned from miserable to a big smile, because I knew that I could stay with Juliet together forever and nobody could break up us again. With that smile, I fell down beside Juliet. I think that while Romeo was drinking the poison, his mind was full of regret and happiness. He regretted that he was too impulsive and emotional, and ignored the foreshadowing because of his extreme love. However, he was also happy because  he knew that dying with Juliet was the only way he could stay with her forever. After I fell down, Juliet woke up. She was surprised and joyful at first when she saw Romeo beside her, because she was afraid that the poison given by Friar Lawrence may kill her or be active for less time than she expected. However, she found out that Romeo died in front of her, by looking at the bottle next to Romeo. Sorrow suddenly took over her face. She drew out the sword from Romeo's sheath. With spasmodic sobs, she stabbed herself confidently and laid beside Romeo. Juliet called the sword “happy dagger” and asked it to let her die, because she knew that dying with Romeo was her best choice in order to stay together forever. However, this tragedy happened because Romeo ignored the foreshadowing. If he was careful with the foreshadowing and listened to Friar Lawrence’s advice to be patient, he wouldn't have killed himself, he wouldn't kill Tybalt and been banished. He could have lived happily with Juliet. Unfortunately, driven by his extreme love, he became emotional and impulsive. The props in this scene helped us a lot by revealing our emotion. For example, I talk to the poison bottle with smile on my face to express my feelings, because that bottle is the thing which brings me to Juliet. The props help me to make the process of expressing characters’ feeling easier and more realistic.

The proceeding of acting Romeo and Juliet is not straight forward for me. It is a totally new experience for me to act as Romeo. Because of the lack of familiarity of how people may act when they fall in love with each other, it is truly a challenge for me to substituting myself into the character. By analysis the dialogues between Romeo and Juliet, I find out the right emotion for the play. I also understand that Romeo and Juliet’s tragic ending happens because of their ignorance of foreshadowing causing by their extreme love. Further more, the using of music, costume and props help me to blend in to the scene, for the reason that they create a more realistic environment for me to express my feeling. I want to use this play as a warning to tell people the dangerous of ignore the things happen around them such as foreshadowing because of the extreme love.

BLog 10

Read After You Write

To tell you the truth, it was my first time to visit the writing center. Although, I know it is a really helpful place for me to improve my essay, and will give me lots of useful advises, I always find out excuse for myself to avoid the trip of writing center; I didn’t sleep well last night, so I need to take a nap during extra help; It was raining outside; It was such a long way from VDP to writing center. I would not have enough time to go there...... Therefore, going to writing center seemed to be an exotica to me. 

After I took out my essay. The first Ms Swift asked me to do is to talk about which part do I want to improve in my essay. I was shocked at first, not knowing what to answer, because usually is the teacher telling me where should I improve. With doubt in my head, I answered that: “ Can you help me to look over my essay?” Ms Swift smiles at me and asked me to read out loud my essay with her. Look at her genial smile I though, she might not seen any people like me before that coming to the writing center without any questions. I felt embarrassed. Luckily, I soon concentrated on reading my essay with Ms Swift. However, a new kind of embarrassment took over my face. I was impressed by how many grammar and spelling mistakes I made in the essay. The mistakes become so obvious while I was reading which made me think that I was such a fruitcake. I realized that reading is really helpful than just looking at the essays, because you can figure out how fluently your sentence is and fix your grammar and spelling mistakes by pronouncing them. Through the progress of reading, I fixed many mistakes by myself, and learned the proper way of using the grammar which helped me to improve the fluency and correctness of my essay.

Ms Swift also taught me the relationship between thesis and topic sentences. For example, In my thesis, I talk about how props, costuming, music, and body language help me to emphasize the importance of the foreshadowing, but I also talk about the analysis about how the lines I picked helped me to highlight the foreshadowing. She told me that it is really important to conclude what I talk about in the body paragraph in the thesis which will be clear to readers. There should be a connection between thesis and body sentences.

To sum up, from the trip to writing center, I find out that the best way to check my essay is to read it after I write it. In addition, I figure out the importance of connecting topic sentence with thesis and figure out how to do it. I also get advice on how to make the paragraph more formal and less blogging. Therefore, In the future, writing center may be the second common place I go besides VDP, because I feel that it is really helpful for me to improve my writing skills.

Fall production

A Story with Fun and Thoughts

Because of the lack of entertainment in campus, watching a play become a big celebration for me to get rid of all the pressures in school for a short period of time. Therefore, this Friday night I went to see the Play---Peter Pan.All I remembered of the story is that I have read it when I was only 7 years old and the ending of it is kind of tragic.

I didn’t notice that the story was written as a play version until I went to the play. Although I prefer music drama than the play, the funny action and jokes soon took over my attentions. John acted really well as a father; when he shouted, the whole black box was full of his voice. He performed perfectly as a father which make a big contrast with another character he acted which was one of the lost boys. He distinguish two character well by his motion and facial expression, although both of them are funny. When he was a father, he was serious and had no patient with his kids. When he was of of the lost boys, he acted silly and have many body language like laugh, and dance. In addition, I think that William acted really well as the dog. He did a great job on making the sound of a dog which seemed to be realistic to me. However, I was a little bit confused with the ending part of the play. I didn’t understand why after Hook died, Peter started to drive the boat and wear the hook. And I didn’t know what happened to all the lost boys, because there weren’t an ending for them. Captain Hook act really well, too. I was impressed by how she acted manly. I think the last scene which Peter was driven the boat is meaningful, but I can’t figure out by myself. 

Overall, I really enjoy the play. I hope it can do better in the winter. It is really a great show and I feel that it worth me to spend three hours of my weekend on it! 

Revised Draft #1

After I finished reading the play vision of “Romeo and Juliet”, I became interested in finding out why Romeo and Juliet have such a tragedy ending. Therefore, I decided to act out the play. In that way I can understand the play better by substitute myself into the story and feel the same way as the characters does. The play is about the love between two teenagers from two hostile family; because of the pullback from their family and their impulsive action, they finally died together and reconcile the anger from both family. I find out that the ignorance of the foreshadowing may be one of the reasons why the tragedy ending happened, so I want to dig deep into the foreshadowing part of the play and discover the start of this pitiful story. I and my partner Julie picked three scenes to present our ideas which were Act 2 Scene 2, Act 3 Scene 3, and Act 5 Scene 3. I acted as  Romeo though out the play. My partner Julie acted as Julie and Friar Lawrence though out the play. In the performance, we use music, varying volume, props and costumes to emphasize how important the foreshadowing is, and the how tragedy happened because Romeo and Juliet ignore the foreshadowing.

In the First Scene, which is Act 2 Scene 2, I use costuming and foreshadowing lines to show how Romeo ignores foreshadowing because of the extreme love.  I wear a black and white ancient shirt to represent  Romeo. The black color refers to the tragic  which Romeo and Juliet are going to face in the future. The white color refers to the pure love between Romeo and Juliet; the white color is too pure and clean that can not hold anything but love which shows that the love between them is extreme. That is why white color takes most of the place on the shirt; because of Romeo and Juliet’s extreme love, they can hardly pay attention to anything else including the foreshadowing. The lines I pick deliver an information that Romeo disregards his life, because he can do everything to stay with Juliet who is his lover. For example, here is one of the lines I choose from the book: “ My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” This sentence express a feeling that Romeo doesn’t care about his death but wanting the love from Juliet.  There is another line I pick with the foreshadowing words in it which is said by Juliet: “If they see thee, they will murder thee.” Although Juliet warns him about the risk of discovered by her family guards which is a foreshadowing of the future, Romeo doesn't want to leave, because he thinks his life is not as important as Juliet’s love.  Therefore, the costumes help me to point out the relationship between the foreshadowing and extreme love by distinguished colors. The foreshadowing lines help me to emphasize why Romeo ignore the foreshadowing.

I also added sound effect in the play to exaggerate the foreshadowing part of the lines. Therefore, it will form a contrast with Romeo’s extreme love. I and my partner choose a soft and smooth music as the background music which is called “Symphony no.101”. The romantic music fit perfectly with the situation that Romeo and Juliet talk about how they love each other. When they talk about the foreshadowing words, we change the music to “Ride of the valkyries” which is a rapid and depressed music. It indicate that something bad is about to happen. In my opinion, the trick to make a play realistic and entertaining is about the emotion you add into the play. In that case, I think music really help me to act emotionally, because the progress of acting with emotion will be a lot easier when you follow the flow of music. For example, when I play a romantic music, it is easy to speak with words like love and heart. With some facial expressions like smile and watching each others’ eyes while speaking, audience can feel the romance among those words bring out by the music. In addition, when the music is rapid and depressed, words like death and sorrow fit perfectly. It not only help me to manifest my emotion, but also give audience a psychological hint that something bad is about to happened. As the meantime, I will shake my hand and smile when the depressed music plays to show that I ignore my death, because it is not as important as Juliet’s love. Nonetheless, it is extremely important to pick the right kind of music to fit different situations. During the progress of the first scene, I and my partner look though almost hundreds of songs and listen to advice from the audience.

In the Second Scene, I highlight the ignorance of the foreshadowing by showing Romeo’s attitude between love and death by using the help of music and body languages. For example, Romeo said that :” Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say “death,” Much more than death.” In Romeo’s mind that banishment is a much crueler things than death. He prefer death than banishment because he can’t stand the pain of never see Juliet again. Nonetheless, Friar Lawrence remind him that “ Be patient, for the word is broad and wide.” which means that Romeo still have a chance to see Juliet again, if he be patient and wait for a chance. However, Romeo close his ears to those advice, because he is filled with sorrow of  leaving Juliet. He act emotional and impulsive in the play which perform as shouting at Friar Lawrence and crying while speaking. In addition, I act like cutting my head off with my hand when speaking the foreshadowing words like “death” to show that Romeo’s unconcern and ignorance of the foreshadowing. To him there is nothing as important as Juliet to him, even his life is meaningless compared to Juliet. I picked  “Dogs of War” as the song of this scene. It is a rapid and repressed music which fit the feeling of Romeo while he heard the news of his banishment. I act rudely to Friar Lawrence by argue with him loudly; also my face is distorted to show that Romeo lost control of his emotion; my hands are forced on my head with swelled veins which looks like trying to hurting myself to remit my regret and sorrow. This is also a refer to the cause of ignore the foreshadowing in the first scene, when I refused to listen to Juliet’s warning that her kinsman will find out and trying to kill me. Although Romeo live though the attack of Juliet’s kinsman, but he also get banished. I muttering the word “death” and  flapping my head in the end of Second Scene, which shows the foreshadowing to the last Scene. Romeo is not afraid and he is ready to die for Juliet.
In the Final Scene, I use props and body languages to show that the tragedy happened because of Romeo’s ignorance of the foreshadowing. After I walking into Juliet’s tomb, I stand in front of juliet and look at her face for a while; I take a deep breath and close his eyes. This action shows that Romeo has made the decision and is ready to die with Juliet. This action form a connection with the second scene which Romeo says to Friar Lawrence that he prefer death than be banished from Juliet. Therefore, when he sees the “death” of Juliet, he feel that his life is vapidness and meaningless, so die with Juliet become his best choice. I take out the drug which I use plastic bottle to replace with and said:” Here’s to my love.” When I say that my face turns from miserable to a big smile, because I know that I can stay with Juliet together forever and nobody can break up us again. With the smile I fall down beside Juliet. I think that while Romeo is drinking the drug, his mind is full of regret and happiness. He regret that he is too impulsive and emotional that ignore the foreshadowing because of the extreme love. However, he is also happy because that he knows that to die with Juliet is the only way he can stay with Juliet forever. After I fall down, Juliet wake up. She is surprise and joyful at first when she sees Romeo stays beside him, because she is afraid the drug given by father Lawrence may kill her or active shorter than she espect. However, she find out that Romeo died in front of her, by looking at the bottle holding by Romeo. Sorrow suddenly take over her face. She draw out the sword from Romeo; with spasmodic sobs she stab herself firmly and lays beside Romeo. Juliet called the sword “happy dagger” and ask it to let her die, because she knows that die with Romeo is her best choice which they can stay together forever. However, this tragedy happens because Romeo ignore the foreshadowing. If he be careful with the foreshadowing and listen to Friar Lawrence’s advice to be patient, he won’t kill himself by drug, he won’t kill Tybalt and got banish. He may live happily with Juliet. Unfortunately, drive by the extreme love, he became emotional and impulsive. The props in this scene help us a lot by revealing our emotion. For example, I talk to the drug bottle with smile on my face to express my feeling, because that bottle is the thing which brings me to Juliet. The props also make the play more realistic.

Revised paragraph

In the First Scene, which is Act 2 Scene 2, I use costuming and foreshadowing lines to show how Romeo ignores foreshadowing because of the extreme love.  I wear a black and white ancient shirt to represent  Romeo. The black color refers to the tragic  which Romeo and Juliet are going to face in the future. The white color refers to the pure love between Romeo and Juliet; the white color is too pure and clean that can not hold anything but love which shows that the love between them is extreme. That is why white color takes most of the place on the shirt; because of Romeo and Juliet’s extreme love, they can hardly pay attention to anything else including the foreshadowing. The lines I pick deliver an information that Romeo disregards his life, because he can do everything to stay with Juliet who is his lover. For example, here is one of the lines I choose from the book: “ My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” This sentence express a feeling that Romeo doesn’t care about his death but wanting the love from Juliet.  There is another line I pick with the foreshadowing words in it which is said by Juliet: “If they see thee, they will murder thee.” Although Juliet warns him about the risk of discovered by her family guards which is a foreshadowing of the future, Romeo doesn't want to leave, because he thinks his life is not as important as Juliet’s love.  Therefore, the costumes help me to point out the relationship between the foreshadowing and extreme love by distinguished colors. The foreshadowing lines help me to emphasize why Romeo ignore the foreshadowing.

Thesis and outlines

Outline:

Intro: lines scenes I choose, background info and my thesis:

In the performance, we use music, various volume, props and costumes to emphasize  how important the foreshadowing is, and the how tragedy happened because Romeo and Juliet ignore the foreshadowing. 

2. First paragraph is about how the extreme love between Romeo and Juliet make them ignore the foreshadowing. 

3. How music, sound volume, body language, and costume help me to emphasize the foreshadowing and making a contrast of Romeo's ignorance.

4. Talk about the foreshadowing in second scene, and how Romeo ignore it because of extreme love. How the music body language, facial expressions to help to show that.

5. How extreme love, impulsive action and the ignorance of foreshadowing lead to their tragedy ending.  The music, sound volume, body language and props help to show that.

6. Conclusion 

In

The first Draft

After I finish reading the play vision of “Romeo and Juliet”, I decide to act out the play which can give me a more realistic feeling, because I can substitute myself into the story and become a member of it. However, the whole play is too long for me, so I choose the topic which I am interested in to start with. The play is about the love between two teenagers from two hostile family; because of the pullback from their family and their impulsive action, they finally died together and reconcile the anger from both family. I am not a big fan of tragedy story, so I want to warn people by using the example of Romeo and Juliet. Therefore, my purpose in the play is to show how important the foreshadowing is, and how dangerous it is to ignore the foreshadowing because of the extreme love between Romeo and Juliet. Luckily, I find Julie who is also keen on this topic and we decide to work together. We pick three scene to present our ideas which are Act 2 Scene 2, Act 3 Scene 3, and Act 5 Scene 3. I act as  Romeo though out the play. My partner Julie act as Julie and Friar Lawrence though out the play. We act in the school’s black box theater which give us a great opportunity and environment to present the play. We also use sound affect, costume, and props to help the play become more realistic and entertaining.

In the First Scene, which is Act 2 Scene 2, I wear a black and white ancient shirt to show that I am Juliet. The black color can refer to the tragedy future Romeo and Juliet are going to face in the future. The white color refer to the pure love between Romeo and Juliet; the white color take most of the place on the shirt which shows that the ignorance of the foreshadowing of future, because of Romeo and Juliet’s extreme love. The lines I pick deliver an information that Romeo disregard his life, because he can do everything to stay with Juliet who is his lover. For example, here is one of the lines I choose from the book: “ My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.” This sentence express a feeling that Romeo don’t care about death but the love from Juliet.  There is another line I pick with the foreshadowing words in it which is speaking by Juliet: “If they see thee, they will murder thee.” Although Juliet warn him about the dangerous of discover by her family members which is a foreshadowing of the future, Romeo think his life is not as important Juliet’s love.  Therefore, these lines perfectly fit the purpose of my play, because it emphasize how Romeo ignore the foreshadowing because of the extreme love, even he knows that the action he make is risky to his personal safety. 

I also add sound affect in the play to exaggerate the foreshadowing part of the lines. Therefore, it will make a contrast with Romeo’s extreme love. I and my partner choose a soft and smooth music as the background music which is called “Symphony no.101”. The romantic music fit perfectly with the situation that Romeo and Juliet talk about how they love each other. When they talk about the foreshadowing words, we change the music to “Ride of the valkyries” which is a rapid and depressed music. It indicate that something bad is about to happen. In my opinion, the trick to make a play realistic and entertaining is about the emotion you add into the play. In that case, I think music really help me to act emotionally, because the progress of acting with emotion will be a lot easier when you follow the flow of music. For example, when I play a romantic music, it is easy to speak with words like love and heart. With some facial expressions like smile and watching each others’ eyes while speaking, audience can feel the romance among those words bring out by the music. In addition, when the music is rapid and depressed, words like death and sorrow fit perfectly. It not only help me to manifest my emotion, but also give audience a psychological hint that something bad is about to happened. As the meantime, I will shake my hand and smile when the depressed music plays to show that I ignore my death, because it is not as important as Juliet’s love. Nonetheless, it is extremely important to pick the right kind of music to fit different situations. During the progress of the first scene, I and my partner look though almost hundreds of songs and listen to advice from the audience. Finally, we figure out the song which suit the lines.

I am going to talk about the next two scenes, how we use costume and props, how we rehearsal and how we improved from that.

Blog#9

Don’t Despise The Foreshadowing!

In my opinion, love is such a beautiful thing to pursue. However, fall in love blindly is not wonderful but cruel, because you will lose ignore things happened around you. You may also lose your mind and do something foolish and risky. Therefore, the whole propose of the play is to show how importance the foreshadowing is, and how dangerous it is to ignore it because of extreme love. We use exaggerate sound affect in the play , and  we wearing costume to make the play become as realistic as we can. In addition, all acting skills also improve a lot during the progress of the rehearsal.

First, I think we perfectly act out the extreme love between Romeo and Juliet, and how they ignore the foreshadowing because of the extreme love which cause their tragedy ending. Among the dialogues, we add body languages to show the love between Romeo and Juliet, such as look at each others’ eyes every time we talk, and smile every time we talk to each other. Also I will try to grab Juliet’s hand in the balcony scene to show her how I love her, though I am far away for her. Therefore, this explain why Romeo and Juliet ignore the oblivious foreshadowing and get into trouble. We exaggerate the foreshadowing words by speak it loudly, and change the smooth soft background music to a edginess and depressing one to show the dangerous behind those words. Also I add body language like shake head and hitting myself when I speak the word “death” which make a flawless expression that Romeo and Juliet don’t care about the hint of the foreshadowing words. The costume and props really helps a lot to make the play become more realistic and entertaining. For example, I use a plastic bottles as the poison to kill myself, and Juliet use the sword to kill herself because of Romeo’s death. 

Second, we improve the play from the rehearsal and the advice giving by our audience. The first time of practice, I almost keep my head down all the time while talking, because I can’t remember the lines. Also the pronunciation is terrible, and I can’t even read the lines fluently because of the difficulty of the ancient language. By countless practice during class and extra help period, I gradually can speak with confidence and fluently without looking at the script. Also the audiences give me advice which let me to add more emotions and body language into the play. For example, I think I do a great job at the part when Romeo is going to drink the poison and die with Juliet. I look at the bottle like looking at my lover and die with smile appear on my face, because I know I am going to see Juliet. However, I think that there are something we should improve in the play. We should memorize all the line, so we don’t need to carry the script with us in the play. In addition, we should slow down our speed and pronounce the word clear and loud. In that case, the play will be more realistic and easier to understand, because the language is hard(you need to listen carefully to the dialogues).

To sum up, we improve the play during the rehearsal and shows the dangerous of ignoring the foreshadowing because of extreme love. I think the music, pops, advice from audience and costume give us a lot of supports on making the play better. I think though this play the biggest improvement I get is learn how to act with emotion. Every time I act in the play, I will imagine I am Romeo. Therefore, the play will look realistic. I believe, next time I will be even better!