Saturday, November 14, 2015

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.

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