Final Anaylsis of My Characters

As a member of “All the Queen’s Women”, I played a few different characters. While there were moments when I filled in as Lady Capulet and Benvolio, the more important roles were the friar (or in my case, the nun) and the nurse. Baz Luhrmann’s modern version of Romeo and Juliet presented innovative interpretations of the characters while maintaining the integrity of the text. I studied the film for a second time to refresh my memory on the portrayal of Miriam Margolves as the Nurse and Pete Postlethwaite as the Friar and discovered they were more involved in the lives of our main characters than I had perceived when I read the text. While Margolves’ name appears unfamiliar, her face is not and as the movie continued, I really wanted to know why the director cast her for the role and what she brought to the world of Shakespeare.
Miriam herself is a chubby, stout woman with her hair styled in curls on top of her head. But she is sturdy-- and the nurse certainly has to be sturdy and secure for Juliet when her mother is so flaky and insensitive to Juliet’s dilemma of the heart. She charges around the mansion, yelling Juliet’s name numerous times simply to let her know her mother needs to speak with her. The nurse behaves more like her mother than Lady Capulet does. While making Juliet’s bed, the nurse’s attention is seized by her father’s extreme anger. In the scene entitled “Juliet Learns Her Options”, the nurse is the one who restrains him and while she cannot stop the inevitable, she defends and protects Juliet.
When Juliet first speaks of a boy she likes, the nurse is pleased to learn that Juliet is in love and gladly tells her to “go seek happy nights to happy days” (Romeo and Juliet. 1.4.106). The nurse is happy when Juliet is happy and seems to understand teenage love. But then she finds out that this boy Juliet likes is a Montague and as her guardian she is obligated to warn her of the dangers their relationship will present to the family. “His name is Romeo and a Montague”, she tells her, “the only son of your great enemy!” (Luhrmann 2002). Luhrmann’s scene “The Revelation” is very effective in demonstrating the urgent need for Juliet to know the truth and longing Romeo is stricken with when the nurse angrily pulls her away. This is a feigned anger though, because she frowns upon Romeo and drags Juliet off, but once they are out of sight she changes her expression to a hopeful one—hopeful Juliet will be taken care—whether or not is Romeo who takes care of her.
But even though the nurse knows that Juliet’s love for Romeo is a risk, she encourages her to attend the secret wedding ceremony. Luhrmann develops the relationship between Juliet and the nurse in the scene “The Nurse Teases Juliet”. The closeness seen here is unique to the movie; the nurse is giggling and speaking well of Romeo and she stands in the back of the church, smiling as the two are married. The nurse is played as a warm, bubbly, caring lady who is Juliet’s only confidante. Later, however, she gives into the reality that Juliet must marry Paris or else. Luhrmann reinforces the guardian role of the nurse which is harder to envision in the text. But because she is not included distilled liquor and the letter plan, this bond is severed when she thinks Juliet is dead.
While the nurse is Juliet’s backbone, Friar Laurence helps both Romeo and Juliet and plays an important role in the survival of their relationship. He is a character in parallel to the nurse. Luhrmann’s film shows him working with plants in his greenhouse, and his soliloquy, while directed at the children, is a foreshadowing of future events. He says “The grey-eyed morning smiles on the frowning night” (Romeo and Juliet. 2.3.1), meaning Juliet, the innocent angel, admires the scorned Romeo. After Romeo walks in, he says “Within the infant rind of this weak flower, poison hath residence and medicine power” (Romeo and Juliet. 2.3.23-24), suggesting that Juliet be greatly affected by the negative consequences of pursuing Romeo, but do something drastic about it. The Friar and the Nurse both have life knowledge that allows them to envision the future of Juliet. The two of them simultaneously support everyone else in the play even if they are unaware of it, and because they realize what is happening, they do what they can to help while staying within their boundaries. The Friar comes up with the idea of the elixir as Juliet’s way out while the Nurse supports Juliet whether she wants to stay with Romeo or marry Paris for her family. Luhrmann makes characters and their relationships to Romeo and Juliet more defined than we see in Shakespeare’s text, adding an intriguing element to the plot as a viewer.
After this scene of foreshadowing in the greenhouse, Romeo approaches him and when he hears the name of Romeo’s love, the camera closes in on the friar’s face, showing his expression of “Oh, no!”. But he continues to listen to Romeo as he asks him to marry him and Juliet. Luhrmann does something interesting here: he shows the friar’s thoughts through daydream images of the two families making peace due to this new pending marriage. The director stays true to the news media motif as a newspaper headline reads “Capulet and Montague men make peace”. Experiencing this revelation and staying loyal to Romeo, he agrees to marry them, in secret of course.
While the friar is well aware of the risks, he also wants to make the situation more pleasant for Romeo and Juliet throughout the play. After the wedding and a short period peace, we find out that Romeo is unjustly convicted of murder and if he doesn’t flee, he will be imprisoned or worse. This is when the friar meets Juliet and attempts to console her and finds her on the brink of suicide. Right after “Juliet Learns Her Options” (which are marry Paris or “slay thyself” (Romeo and Juliet. 4.1.72)), this scene between them appears and he tells her he “spies a kind of hope” (Romeo and Juliet. 4.1.68). As he tells her about the potion, Luhrmann again reveals the mindset and plan of the friar through a daydream, and interestingly, the purple vile seen earlier in the greenhouse is shown and is the same as the elixir he gives Juliet. Baz Luhrmann creates this scene as very high-strung and dramatic, which it may have been on Shakespeare’s stage, but you don’t get that from the text alone. He speaks quickly with a determined fear in his eyes. He is desperately trying to get Juliet to think rationally and he speaks of his plan with flourish and detail, slowly taking the gun from her rather than quickly snatching it as I would have imagined. He concludes with the advice “be strong and prosperous in this resolve” to carry out this alternate plan as she leaves him (Romeo and Juliet. 4.2.122). He later finds her “dead” and acts nonchalant as he scoops her off the bed and brings her to the church. Without words, Luhrmann then shows the devastating realization that the friar’s plan fell through by showing his panicked face in the back of the church.
By studying both of my counterparts, I discovered even more about the inner structure of Romeo and Juliet than in all the other times I was asked to read the play as a text. Each director, each actor and each version of this or any play can bring new insights never before seen in any other version. Luhrmann related to the contemporary audience by using modern settings such as a beach and a swimming pool, but kept the original language. His interplay of modern and original elements was exceptional. This version of Romeo and Juliet provided an excellent gage between itself and my performance because both performances were only six years apart.
While I am certainly not an actress, I did have a unique portrayal of both the nurse and the friar (nun). I found out the nurse was more attentive and close to Juliet than I thought, whereas the text made her out to be merely a babysitter, someone to watch Juliet and make sure she stays out of trouble while the nurse obeys Lord Capulet’s orders. She is also very knowledgeable and wise in the film and again, we don’t see this much in the text. While she does say “He that lay hold of her shall have the chinks” (Romeo and Juliet. 1.5.118), we are unable to see the concern in her eyes and the urgency in her messages shown in the movie when we simply read the text. In my performance, I was still under the first impression of the nurse—her as the babysitter—if I had reviewed the film first, I may have altered my approach.
My small speeches of the nurse in our group’s performance were essential in completing the framework of the plot. From observing Miriam Margolves’ adaptation, especially in the beginning when she informs Juliet about who Romeo is, I found her approach to be the right balance between being truthful with her and remaining sensitive to her feelings. I was more indifferent, scolding Juliet for even thinking about Romeo. Later on in the movie, the nurse stays out of Juliet’s way when she asks her to let her sleep alone the night she is to take the elixir. Miriam plays her as suspicious of a master plan, but in my approach, I was oblivious, discovering Juliet later and being totally shocked. (At least that was the plan before we changed the ending at the last minute). I learned from the movie that the nurse is a more complex and important character than I had previously realized. I am unsure if this approach was Shakespeare’s intention or the director’s decided direction. Either way, Miriam was a good fit for the role and added to the innovation of the film and the integrity of the original play.
Pete Postletwaite approach was innovative as well. He broke the calm and reserved mold that a friar role should have. He was happy and relaxed in the greenhouse as he tended to his precious plants and foretold the audience about upcoming consequences and got excited at the possibility of mending the feud through Romeo’s marriage to Juliet. He expressed extreme fear and determination when Juliet came to him wanting to kill herself. As he pulled the gun away, his eyes were open wildly and he trembled as he slowly set the gun down. Then as the plan was revealed, his voice grew much louder and more assertive. His eyes glazed over in wondering whether or not Juliet would agree to this plan and when he did his expression changed to one of intensity, handing her the vile. His soliloquy in this scene is the one I did onstage. My version was much calmer, maybe because I was actually a nun. Maybe gender makes a difference in this role in that a nun would have approached the situation with more worry than determination as I did. My performance came across as worried for Juliet’s safety and the intensity Pete put into the role was not in my approach. My performance was affective, but not the rollercoaster of emotions that we see in Luhrmann’s film.
New Historicism suggests that plays like Romeo and Juliet is a “product of the time, place, and social, political, and economic circumstances in which it was written”. While this may be the case with the original text, the story is so much more than that and is adaptable to other time periods, such as the twenty-first century in 2002. Therefore, the actors in this film have different interpretations of the characters than the actors in Shakespeare’s time and I have a slightly different interpretation in 2008. There are some similarities, especially in the role of the nurse. The nurse is Juliet’s confidante in both roles. She is loyal to Juliet, having her best interest at heart in all the situations of the play, and while she has obligations to the Capulet name, she does not stand in the way of Juliet’s true love. She mediates between all the characters, keeping the peace as best as her role allows. These characteristics can be seen in both Margolve’s performance and mine, all of which develop Shakespeare’s character of the nurse in a positive light.
However, there are areas where I fell short, of course. As previously mentioned, the close bond between the nurse and Juliet was not as visible in my performance as in the movie. Also, I was harsher with Romeo than Margolves was in the movie especially when I said “I nursed her daughter that you talked withal” (Romeo and Juliet 1.5.116) and angrily frowned upon Romeo. I also did not bring in the physical affection or restraint the nurse often showed Juliet in the film. She grabbed her arm at moments when she needed to speak to her privately. She hugged her shoulders when she told Juliet to “seek happy nights to happy days” and excitedly hugged her when she was to go to the church. When she was dealing with the conflict between Juliet and her father, she touched Juliet’s shoulder gently. While doing all of this in my performance would have been both awkward and unnecessary, considering all of this beforehand would have added warmth to my version of the nurse.
As the nun/friar, I understood the urgency of the message I was delivering to Juliet and I stressed how important it was to get all the details correct, just as the actor did in Luhrmann’s film. I conveyed concern for Juliet’s well being and willingness to assist her in remaining with Romeo. But while Postelethwaite’s performance in this scene began as almost threatening, my tone as the nun was regretful concern. I was not loud and intense in my delivery of the soliloquy, but rather matter-of-fact. It is debatable which approach is more effective, but both were clearly distinctive unlike the text in which the reader creates their own interpretation.
Studying multiple materials of Romeo and Juliet-the text, the movie, and our own performance created a complex inner structure of each character. Combining these three versions was an effective way of understanding Shakespeare’s intentions for the characters and its relationship to modern takes on what these characters should look like, behave like, and believe in. While no one’s performance was exactly like the original text, the actors in the film and I all brought interesting and valuable inferences to the story. Looking at the inner minds of these characters helps us to tap into the inner mind of Shakespeare himself.

A New Point of View on Our Onstage Peformances

Initially after the evening of our performances, I heard many comments such as "Well, we tried really hard" or "I'm so glad this is over, we did so bad". While I had been eager to perform before November 20th and felt that no matter what happened the evening would be a success, afterward I fell in the trap of worrying about what people thought before hearing all the positive feedback. So I wrote the previous blog in that state of mind. However, after reading the mass emails, reviewing the text, movie, and seeing our performance on tape, I realized that the real success of the evening came from our bonding as a class and deciding that Shakespeare's plays can be studied in a fresh and interesting context. With the right mindset, we gained contemporary insights from each of the plays studied this semester. After reflecting on all of these things, I was filled with regret for posting a blog so negative and so focused on what people might have thought when they really didn't think those things (that we were "bad" and that all we did was "try really hard") at all. I suppose the lesson learned from all this is to maintain the excited, non-self conscious attitude and I sincerely hope future classes will experience a project like this and benefit from it.

Shakespeare Scenes Night: Romeo and Juliet

This entire week, the our play group worked very hard to work out all the kinks in our performance. We met three extra days and felt that we had prepared as best we could considering how little time we actually got in the auditorium and despite the fact that we never had the chance to run through the ending. I am confident the audience thoroughly enjoyed our performance, however rough and unpolished it ended up looking. I stumbled a couple times, with an awkward pause as the nun, forgeting my last three lines. I ended up saying "Hold then go home....take thou this vile." At least it kind of fit. I enjoyed the rest of the groups' peformances. While no one was flawless, we all brought humor and entertainment to the work of Shakespeare. Every group took a unique spin on the adaptation, and I hope that our shortcomings, (especially mine), will be overlooked by the audience and that they focus on our great effort.

MacBeth

I have read MacBeth once before and watched a full-length theater production on film in my Introduction to the Theatre class. I found it to be the darkest, bloodiest, most unbearable play of all of Shakespeare's. Reading the text was interesting, but watching the play peformed was horrific.
However, looking at MacBeth a second time in Shakespeare's Tragedies, the approach the class took to the text was much more interesting and comfortable. Analyzing the witches and whether or not they were good, bad, or just prophetic was interesting, and the wizard in Throne of Blood was an interesting character to compare to the witches. I now also understand Lady MacBeth's character more than I did before this class. The manipulation of her husband and her thirst for power which bypasses all empathy for others is the most horrifying part of MacBeth. While I don't plan on reading MacBeth again, I have a different, more interesting opinion of the play now.

RAN and King Lear

For an audience of today's college students, the Japanese movie Ran takes patience and an open mind to watch. I found it difficult to relate to the characters and the hostile nature of the storyline. It was so different from any film, foreign or American that I have ever seen (and I've watched more recent Japanese films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which I enjoyed). I was not used to the choreographed moments that realistically would not be choreographed-like the men falling off the horses exactly the same way. However, the movie featured amazing scenery, costumes, and stunts and successfully attributed eastern religion and culture to a western play. The tragedy here, rather than death itself, is the foolishness of a "wise" man which occurs in the beginning, resulting in separation and destruction. Unlike other Shakespearan plays where I enjoyed the movie adaptation more, reading King Lear was easier to do than watching Ran was.

The Queen's Women: work in progress

For a while this semester, Shakespeare Scenes Night (Nov. 20th) seemed far enough away. But as we near the end of October, it is definitely time to "get our act together", no pun intended. Anyway, I feel that the workshop with the theatre majors (Rebecca helped our group) was beneficial and she gave us a lot of good blocking pointers: never stand in complete profile to the audience, over-the-top expression is easier to work with than monotone, things like that. She also gave us good ideas about when to walk over to whom depending on how close the relationship is between the characters. While we feel confident now about blocking (of course we still need to perfect it), now we need to focus on memorizing lines. Once we have a couple intense rehearsals, we should be good to go.

Othello, Acts 4 and 5

In the closing acts of this trajedy, Othello reaches borderline insanity because of the mind games he has endured from Iago. The big question of whether or not Othello's troubles with Iago are related his race alone comes to a head at the conclusion of the story where he kills Desihmona. Was he sooo brainwashed that he really believed that she was unfaithful to him or was it just the thought of her being with someone else and him thinking "if she's not with me, she can't be with anyone?" Did Iago target Othello because he was a moor or because he really wanted Desi for himself? Maybe it was a combination of both, but in my opinon, her death could have been prevented in spite of all the mind games. If Othello could have stepped away from the madness for just a minute to uncover the real story from Desi and Emily, he would have saved her life and his. Jealousy combined with rage is always a deadly cocktail. Sadly, in our contemporary modern society, situations like these do escalate to the extremes seen at the end of the play. If more people read Shakespeare's trajedies (especially Othello), maybe there would be less violence and hatred in the world.

Othello (Act 1)

This is my first time ever studying Othello and I find it to be the best Shakespearian tragedy I have read. This play engages the most conversation and brings up political and social topics that apply to American contemporary culture. I also enjoyed "O", the contemporary adaptation. Orientalism and how it relates to the western culture is something I have always thought about, but never knew how to define. The last class has sparked my interest in the way we depict eastern customs and people. The first act of the play leaves us wondering if Iago's hatred for Othello is really about the promotion or something deeper, OR is Iago just crazy? Shakespeare is writing about misunderstandings between classes and races of people and he shows what occurs when the characters do not choose to understand those differences and let prejudice behavior escalate.

How Schmidt and Shakespeare Reflects My Writing

Schmidt and Shakespeare (a blog created after the more creative name Shakespeare Scribbles was rejected), is a forum to discuss the text of Shakespeare in a insightful and reflective way. When someone posts on a blog or does any text-analysis writing, there are three different stages or mindsets the readers may have. Text-Self is limited, a beginning stage that answers simple questions such as did I like the book? The Text-Other Texts stage is when the reader relates the text to other texts, and the Text-World stage is relating the text to other areas of study such as politices, religion, and philosophical. As a reader myself, I began at the first and now almost at the third stage, just not yet consistently.
The reason for my being in the first stage was mostly because I was unaware of the different kind of stages a writer of analysis could be in and I did not have to move past stage one in other classes except when writing a paper. In romantic and Victorian Literature, we discussed books such as Charles Dicken's Hard Times and looking back, those in-class discusions were like oral blogs because then other students would comment on what was said and discussions would branch off from everyone. The comments I made then were mostly things about that text only at first: "Bounderby's is such a mamma's boy in this chapter"or "louisa and Tom are closer than most brothers and sisters". As we read more of the story, my comments became more sophisticated, but at the beginning I was clearly in the Text- self stage, not so much because I did or didn't like the text, but because I stayed within the context of that book only. I also read often for fun, and people alawys ask me what the book is about or why I like it. I tell them things like "yeah the book isvery interesting" or "the main chacter is so naive", which are general comments. Part of this is due to the fact that I want them to leave me alone so I can finish my book, but it is also because I don't like deeply analyzing the books i choose to read. But discussions in other English classes and writing my blog habe helped me to make more of an effiet to get deeper meaning from text. It is important to analyze some of what we read, especially when the text is from a different literary era such as Shakespeare's Romeo and juliet.
My blog on Romeo and Juliet, the movie adaptation, was still in the first stage because I discussed things that you can only see in the movie. I did however make some good points about how the actors" body language expressed the emotions Shakespeare wanted to convey. I wrote "The body language is quick, forceful, threatening. This sets the scene for the seriousness of the feud". While this shows I watched the movie closely, it does not bring in other movies or texts. I alos mentioned the actors" tone of voice and pointed out a specific scene. Again this is important but not the second stage.
However when I wrote the blog for "Camp", I related in to Titus and other people, so I clearly moved into the second stage, texts- other texts, making progress. I discussed how Titus shows camp calling it over the top and saying that it fails to be serious. One could even argue mentioning camp as a way to peak interest in new topics such as teens is a third-stage comment, but i don't see myself staying in the third stage consistently after that. While my post continue to get better and see a broader scope of trut each week, I do not feel that I am in the text-world (or third stage) completely. I am somewhere between stage two and three. I don't always discuss how each topic or text is reflected in the media, but i almost always go beyond weather or not the text was well writted, although this fact may be a good starting point in some situations. In the contacts of an informative paper, it might serve the reader well to begin with the basics before moving into the third stage to draw the reader in. Also in such a case, the second stage is important too when seting the scene for your topic, and then the third stage can come in twards the end, while there are appropiate moments to write in each stage, The goal is to figure out how to stage three all of the time because it is the most benefcial to the reader of the texts and those who read a blog like this one.
Toget to stage three and stay there, one has to develop strategies to be successful and keep your mindset thinking about what's important: whether or not society has properly interpreted the text, wat worldview the text represents, and how the text benifets us readers now even when the text is as old as Shakespeare's Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. The final issue to overcome (in my opinion) is lazyness versus motivation. Honestly, there are days when thinking about the political monarchy in hamlet and how it creates power struggles for example just feels like too much work. also if someone brings up a brillant insight that was not yet thought of , other ideas can seem not worth mentioning. However, briefly brainstorming your opinions on text and important discussion topics and jotting them down right after you finish reading ensures motivation to contribute a conversation starter in class or comments can also help to see past the objective. Another issue may be not having the contextual knolege of that time in history or literature. In this case, extra research can pay off, along with saving notes from other classes when you think they migyht come in handy later. All of this will bring you into stage three.
These three stages are a great way to assess the sophistication and knoledge of how to analyze literary works. It allows you to have a basis for critiquing a book and applying the work to your life and your society which is what the auther wants us to do in the first place.

Hamlet

I have read this play three or four times now and each time I gain new insights into both Shakespeare's reasons for writing it and the way viewers interpret the play. Since I am now taking a class that focuses on images of woman in literature (that's the name of the class), I can really see how women used their sexuality as a means of gaining power. If they didn't gain power, maybe it was to keep them where they were for fear of regressing in status if they didn't do what men wanted them to do. I see Kate Chopin's character Edna Pontellier in The Awakening struggling with the consequences of going completely agiainst the role she was supposed to have. Unfortunately, many heroins (if you will) end up dying or commiting suicide. Hopefully today we have learned a lot more and I think it helps to look into literature of the past, especially Shakespeare.

Titus Andronicus as a tragic hero

I can't say I sympathize with him because he has been a flat character of rage for too long. I agreed when Alexa said we should have seen him before the war had the effects that it did on him. I think he killed Lavina out of mercy because her life would have been a living hell in her condition. He may have started out as a hero, but things escalated too much by the end and the message of this whole story to me is that revenge is never over, therefore it never does any good. Once you do something evil to someone and they get you back for it, then they may want revenge for that act and so on. It's a vicious cycle where nobody wins, and I think that's what Shakespeare wants us to take away from this.

Camp

I did not know what camp meant until recently, but it is a good topic to consider when studying literature. The handout we read in class was a little too in depth, but she made some good points. I had never seen the music video for Turn Back Time and it was a lot trashier that I expected. I think camp can relate to all ages and it is the primary way to peak interest in new topics, especially for teens. Titus as a text could be seen as camp, but as a movie, the harsh visuals make it harder to put in that category. But I do think that Shakespeare fails to be serious because Titus is so over the top.

The Queen's Women

The name of our theatre company is the Queen's Women and we are doing twenty minutes of Romeo and Juliet. We decided to try and summarize the play with key points throughout, giving the audience a nutshell version. I wanted to play Juliet, but I was not the only one who did, so Emily has that role. I will be playing a number of characters: the nurse, the friar (which will be a nun) lady capulet, and benvolio (as a girl) in one fight scene. I am not sure how this is going to work, but we'll see. We are still deciding on costumes, but we have a few ideas.

Romeo and Juliet Act1

In class on Wednesday, we talked about actors and their facial expressions, emotions, body language and voice. One scene in the beginning of the play that we didn't talk about stood out as being different in the movie than what I expected from the text. In Act 1 Scene 1, lines 40-51, they are at the gas station in the movie. Abram says "Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?" and Samson says "I do but not at you." They are expressing anger and resentment here. The vains in their neck are pulses, their faces are red, and their nostrils are flared in agresssion. The body language is quick and forceful, threatening. The voices are loud and exaggerated. This sets the scene for the seriousness of the feud.

Shakespeare in Love

Sarah Schmidt

Shakespeare in Love took me by suprise in that it was very intriguing, not boring at all. I enjoyed watching it. This movie did challenge the myth of Shakespeare because it showed how love changed his outlook on theater and affected his method of writing. It really brought to reality how women were shunned from the stage and it was awesome that the exception was made for Viola, whether the queen knew she was a woman or not. It makes me curious about Romeo and Juliet which if it is anything like this movie will keep my interest. My favorite scene was at the end of the play when the audience was in shocked silence but suddenly gave a standing ovation.