My group and I had worked on two scenes. The first scene we staged was originated from Act 2 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. Honestly, it didn't go well at the beginning. Shakespeare's plays are quite hard to demonstrate, the complications of language and the time difference were the difficulties that needed to be solved. We decided to keep the original sentences and made an big change on the setting; put Romeo and Juliet on different sides of a pillar, instead of meeting at the balcony. We really liked this idea because the distance between the lovers was shortened, since Juliet doesn't need to stay up at the balcony. Also, it became much easier to set the scene.(No ladders or additional tools required).
We had plenty of funny moments while performing the scene. Cherry was the plot designer and she made another significant change to the original play: Eric and I had to play for Romeo and Juliet. Suddenly the performance became a little awkward. The lovers' role didn't fit us well, but we still tried our best to make the play seemed real.
However, the problems just kept showing up. One of the biggest ones was caused by shyness, Eric and I didn't have loud enough voice at the beginning, so the audience couldn't hear us well. But we improved right away. The lack of performing experience really caused a bunch of mistakes. A good example would be that Eric and I were always facing each other while performing, and the audience couldn't see our faces. The performers should always face toward the audience in order to show the facial expression. Thanks to the teacher, we corrected the problem and were able to move on.
The second scene started at this week, and I joined a new group to work on it. Since it's no longer
our first performance, there were a few improvements on the practice. As I mentioned above, I didn't have loud enough voice at the first performance, yet at the practice this week I was able to speak clearly. The second scene is mainly about the conflict between Tybalt(Joseph) and Mercutio(Leo), and Romeo(me)'s intervention. This scene is less difficult than the one on Act 2 Scene 2. All the actors are boys and we have the passion to perform the fighting scene. Passion is the most important factor to makes the scene better. The only problem we are facing right now is my poor control on laughing. I'm just not a good actor because I always laugh and ruin the whole scene, it confuses me so much. Maybe in the future practices , I will find a way to prevent laughing.
It's quite challenging to shorten the whole scene into a five to ten minutes performance. Leo and I need to cut a lot of lines of ours because Tybalt(Joseph) has less lines. And it actually turned out well, the briefer plot shows the main storyline.
In conclusion. After all the problems, our performance keeps getting better. I had learned not only from correcting mistakes but also from watching other's performance. Julie and Ryan's performances are always my favorite, they act naturally and speak fluently. Those are my short term goals
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