Over the course of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Juliet undergoes many aspects of an immense change. As a young girl falling in love, she experiences many emotions that previously have not been a part of her life. The Montagues and the Capulets are two noble families in a long-standing feud. When Juliet first sees Romeo, she immediately feels the connection between them. Despite coming from opposing families, their circumstances only seem to highlight their love for each other. Due to the pressure from Juliet’s parents about marrying Paris, Romeo and Juliet realize that their need to move forward in their relationship. The scene that I selected begins at this point. Through Shakespeare's language, Juliet matures from a young girl into a woman deeply in love. This development was very important to portray, specifically through facial expressions and body language.
In the beginning of the play, Juliet can be seen as a young girl who depends on her parents to make decisions for her. This is portrayed when her mother and the Nurse come into her bedroom to talk to her about getting married to Paris. Despite knowing very little about courtship and marriage, she opens up to the idea because of the presenters. But once Juliet meets Romeo, her whole behavior changes. She begins to push back on her parents’ decisions and is willing to break more rules. When Juliet’s parents tell her that she must marry Paris, a Count, she is defiant. She goes to Friar Lawrence, the religious man who married the pair, to ask for his help. This in and of itself was a big step for Juliet. Previously, she always had everything handed to her from her family. She knows that, from now on, she will not have their support and must help herself. Friar Lawrence creates a potion to make Juliet seem dead. The Friar will then send for Romeo to come wake Juliet, and leave Verona forever.
Our scene begins with Juliet in her bedroom, ready to take the potion. In the first monologue, Juliet goes through a range of emotions. She knows that this is an important decision, and therefore takes adequate time contemplating it beforehand. Deciding what she truly wants is key here because for the first time in her life, she is in charge of her own life. But when she is alone in her bedroom with the potion, her uncertainty shines through. The third line of the scene is the following: “I’ll call them back again to comfort me./ Nurse!—What should she do here?/ My dismal scene I needs must act alone” (4.3.17-9). This shows a lot about Juliet’s character. Her first instinct is to call her family back and ask for their help. This is what her life before meeting Romeo consisted of; relying on others to make her decisions. But she quickly realizes that they cannot help her and she is alone in this decision. This scares her. Juliet continues her monologue, worrying about the potion and the future. She says, “What if it be a poison which the friar/ Subtly hath minist’red to have me dead,/ Lest in this marriage he should be dishonor’d/ Because he married me before to Romeo?” (4.3.24-7). She wonders if the potion will do what the Friar said, or if it is a trap that will kill her. This quote shows that she is continuing to question everything. In the beginning of this monologue, Juliet’s adolescence is put on display in the beginning of this monologue.
Juliet also wonders about the possibilities if the potion does work. She thinks about what would happen if she gets stuck in the tomb and suffocates, then moves on to what would happen if she went crazy whilst in the vault. Juliet thinks through all these different options because on the inside, she is still the young, inexperienced girl that we see in the beginning of the play. She is unsure about whether or not she should take the potion. Her monologue ends with these words; “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!/ Here’s drink—I drink to thee” (4.3.59). Juliet calls for Romeo multiple times before she takes the potion. This shows that it is ultimately Romeo that makes her decision. She knows this potion is the way to get her future with Romeo. These dreams give her confidence and make her overlook her worries. For Juliet, just thinking about her love for Romeo is enough to risk her life.
It is clear that Juliet goes through a range of emotions throughout this monologue, and I, as the actor, must portray these feelings through my expressions and delivery of the lines. The setting for the first monologue was in Juliet’s bedroom. We chose to use no set pieces and very few props. The main prop that we used for the scene was a glass vial that contained the potion. This forced the audience’s focus to be on the actors and their lines and emphasized the importance of the vial. To create intimateness needed for a bedroom, I chose to be sitting on the ground to start the scene. As I said the lines, “I’ll call them back again to comfort me./ Nurse!” (4.3.17-8), I quickly got up and moved toward exit stage left. This showed the how quickly Juliet’s thought process went to her family. In addition, when Juliet wanted the Nurse, I called to backstage stage left, implying the Nurse’s location. My voice got louder and more urgent as if someone was needed right now. My delivery of the next lines, on the other hand, was a large contrast. Juliet says, “What should she do here?/ My dismal scene I needs must act alone” (4.3.18-9). She realizes that her family will not help her, causing a drastic decrease in volume, which I reflected. She also understands that she must make the decisions. Because of this, I chose to sit back down on the floor for the remainder of the monologue. It shows Juliet’s acceptance of her situation and determination to find a solution.
The rest of the lines involved Juliet’s thought process about if she should take the potion. One choice that I made was to look around the room, then focus on the vial. This looks as if she is searching for someone or something that will give her the ‘right’ answer. Always coming back to the vial showed that she had not yet made a decision and emphasized her uncertainty. To express Juliet’s fear, I chose to have a fearful expression on my face. This combined with the glances around the room created an overall anxious feel. It shows that she knows that she must make the right decision. The first monologue ends with Juliet calling out for Romeo. This creates an effective climax because I chose to make my voice louder the first two times to imitate Juliet’s need to be with Romeo. By the third time she calls for him, she realizes that she is alone. I showed this by lowering my voice, and looking toward the upstage right as if Romeo will enter. This lets the audience know that it is the thought of Romeo that compels her to take the potion. The scene continues to Romeo entering the tomb to find Juliet. He sees her, believes that she is dead, and then kills himself to be with her. During his whole monologue, I am lying onstage, as if I am dead.
After Romeo kills himself, Juliet wakes up very distressed. She says, “O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop/ To help me after?” (5.3.163-4). This is the third line of the monologue, and she is already thinking about killing herself. This is revealing a massive change in Juliet’s character. When she was taking the potion, she had a whole monologue to decide if she really wanted to take it. Here, it took her just a few lines to resort to suicide, due to her overwhelming desire to be with him. This justifies her decision to kill herself. Another large change was that she did not once mention her family, or even hesitate when making her choice. Her short period of independence causes her to only think of herself and Romeo. The only interruption is when she hears the noise outside which only causes her to move even faster, as shown here: “Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger. . .” (5.3.169). For a character like Juliet to make such a rushed decision highlights the change in her over the course of the play.
As an actor, this scene was very interesting due to many underlying emotions. To build up emotion in the beginning of the scene, my partner and I decided that Romeo would die slightly behind where Juliet was lying. Therefore when Juliet woke up, Romeo was not immediately visible. So when she sees him dead, the effect is much greater because of change in her expression. When I got up, I chose to get up somewhat slowly, stretching to imitate grogginess. I also chose to look around, as if I did not know where I was. This was when I saw Romeo dead behind me. After I saw him, my actions changed completely: I immediately was wide awake, and aware of the situation. My eyes were wide open, and I quickly rushed to his side, disbelieving and concerned. I made sure to crouch very close to Romeo, and kept touching him throughout my lines to show Juliet’s affection. She says most of her lines to Romeo. To demonstrate this, I faced Romeo for most of my lines, only looking up to think about something or look at the vial. When Juliet dies, I made sure to end the scene with my arms lying over Romeo, in an embrace. This shows that she wants to be with him until the very end. The use of facial expression proved to be crucial to the effectiveness of the scene.
Juliet Capulet was a very intriguing character to play in our adaptation. The changes that she undergoes throughout the scene makes her compelling. It forced me to fully understand the emotions behind every action, to portray her correctly. Our scene did not have any slow parts because we chose to take out any lines that were not relevant. This allowed the audience to focus on what parts were really important. The hardest part about this scene was the lack of interaction between Romeo and Juliet. Our whole scene consisted of monologues. This made it difficult to create interaction and emotion because there was not someone else to react to. We, as individuals, had to create the emotion that we needed. My partner and I worked on this through various acting techniques that familiarized with our characters so we could display them effectively. Overall, through our scene, I was able to learn a lot about the acting process and how Juliet changes as a character.
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