Over the course of the play “Romeo and Juliet,” Juliet is a character that undergoes an immense amount of change in many different aspects. 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 who are 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 despite their situation. The scene that I selected begins at this point. Throughout Shakespeare's' language in the play, Juliet changes as a young girl maturing into a woman deeply in love. This development was very important to portray as an actor through facial expressions and movements.
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 portrayed in the beginning of the play when her mother, and her handmaid, 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 of it because of who is presenting the idea. Once Juliet meets Romeo, her whole behavior changes. She starts 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 noble Count, she is defiant. She goes to Friar Lawrence, the religious man who had married the pair, to ask for his help. This in and of itself was a big step for Juliet. Previously, she has always had everything handed to her from the Nurse or her parents. Because from now on, she knows that she must be the one to help herself. Friar Lawrence creates a potion that will put Juliet to sleep as if she is dead, so her family will place her in the tomb. Then the Friar will send for Romeo who will come get Juliet, wake her up, and bring them away from Verona. This is where our scene begins.
Our scene starts when Juliet is in her bedroom and she has to take the potion to start the plan. In this first monologue, Juliet goes through a range of emotions. She knows that she is making an important decision, and that is why she takes so much time contemplating it. Deciding what she truly wants is key in this section because, for the first time in her life, she is in charge of her own life. The potion that could change her life forever is in her hand. But when she is alone in her bedroom with the potion, her uncertainty really shines through. The third line of our 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. It shows that her first instinct is to call back her family and ask for help. This is what her life before Romeo consisted of; relying on others to make her decisions. But she realizes that they cannot help her and that she is truly alone in this decision. And that scares her. She goes on to worry a lot about the potion and what will happen next. 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). This quote shows that she is continuing to question everything. She wonders if the potion will do what the Friar said, or if it is a trap that will kill her.
Juliet also wonders about all the possibilities if the potion does work. She first thinks about what would happen if she gets stuck in the tomb and suffocates, then moves on to pondering 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 very much 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” (4.3.58). Juliet calls out for Romeo multiple times before she takes the drink. This shows that it is ultimately Romeo that makes her decision. She longs for a future with him and she knows that this is the path to that. It gives her confidence and makes her overlook everything else. For Juliet, just thinking about her love for Romeo is enough to risk her life.
It is clear that Juliet goes through a variety of emotions throughout this monologue, and I, as the actor have to portray all 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 little props. The main prop that we used for the scene was a glass vial that contained the potion. This allowed for audience’s focus to be solely on the actors and their lines. To create a sense of intimateness onstage, necessary for this setting, 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 calls for the Nurse, I called toward backstage stage left, to imply that the Nurse would be in that direction. My voice got louder and more urgent as if calling for someone needed now. My delivery of the next lines, on the other, 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 they will be any help to her and this causes a drastic decrease in volume, which I reflected. She also understands that she must make the decisions. Due to 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. It 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 emphasizes 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 the third time, 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 finally take the potion.
Then, the scene cuts 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. Juliet wakes up after Romeo kills himself and she is 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 that monologue, and she is immediately 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. Now, it took her a few lines to resort to suicide, due to her overwhelming desire to be with him. It causes her to justify her decision to kill herself. Another large change was that she did not once mention her family, or even hesitate in making her choice. Her short time being independent caused her to think only of herself and Romeo. The only interruption is when she hears the noise outside which 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 the various underlying feelings involved. To create the most emotion in the beginning of the scene, my partner and I blocked the scene so that Romeo would die slightly behind where Juliet was lying. Therefore, when Juliet woke up, she could not see Romeo at first. So when she wakes up and sees him dead, the emotion involved is much greater because the audience can see a change in her expression. When I got up, I chose to get up somewhat slowly, stretching as I went to imitate the grogginess that came with waking up. 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, concerned and disbelieving. 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 himself. To demonstrate this, I faced Romeo 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.
Juliet Capulet was a very intriguing character to play in our adaptation of the scenes. The changes that she undergoes throughout the scene makes her compelling. It forced me to fully understand the emotions behind every action, in order to portray her correctly. Our scene as a whole did not have any slow parts because we chose to take out any lines that were not directly 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 monologue. This made it difficult to create interaction and emotion because there was not someone else to react to. That meant we, as individuals, had to create the emotion that we needed from inside ourselves. My partner 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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