The other week we went to see a play, in Bushnell. This play was unlike any I have seen before. When I learned we were watching a play, the first thing I thought of was people dressed in costumes on an elaborate stage. Yet, this play did not have people. It had one person. I was devastated when I found this out. I pondered on what the play would be like. Most of it was negative: Is this going to be a boring lecture about slavery? How can you do a play with one person?

To my disbelief, the woman performing did an incredible job. Some parts were confusing, but for the most part, I understood it. The woman used different voices and postures for each character. Her style was very minimalistic. She did not use costumes and had a limited stage set. Single-handedly, she portrayed every character differently. Although the actress did a phenomenal job, there was one flaw with the play. 

At times they play was boring. On one hand, this makes sense because it's a serious play about racism. On the other hand, there are things that could have been done to make it easier to follow. The background was minimal. Although this is the writer's style it makes it harder to picture and follow. Additionally, a play with more people could have been more entertaining to the audience. Even though the play is serious, it can't be so boring that the children in the audience fall asleep. I did not see this happen but I'm sure someone did. The audience consisted of many little kids. The audience should want to watch. Besides this one flaw, the play was great. 

Overall I give the play a 7.5 out of 10. The actress got a 10 out of 10. But on the entertainment side, the play received a 5 out of 10. The worth of the play goes beyond the rating. 

The play was worth missing school for. Not only did it get us out of work, it unintentionally taught us important skills. It shows us what we are capable of doing with hard work and countless hours of practice. It also teaches us that we don't need props to act. The woman showed us acting skills we can apply to ourselves, to make ourselves better actors. From watching the play, we became better actors.

Warriors don't cry is not simply a play about warriors. It takes a bigger perspective on the world. This play happens in a  time period that had different ethics than modern America. Life was not as fair, and equality was not valued as much back then. This play deals with the issues of race and the corruption of out historic society. In more detail, the play includes issues of segregation. In this play there are specific people who devote their lives to studying in law school, to fight this cause. African American people in this society dealt with extreme racism, especially in school. When the little rock school denies admission to black people, they sue which stirs up even more conflict. They won the lawsuit and black people were allowed in the school. Yet, this was far from winning; it was just the beginning. What is the point of being accepted into a school if other forces stop you from going? At this point, the laws were the least of their concerns. This law being passed evoked mass mobs to chase out the black people and caused lynchings. The president then gets involved and sends troops to help the school. This play is about the conflict surrounding this school between the blacks and whites, truly making an intriguing story.

 

Throughout the play, I made remarkable improvements. At the end, I successfully read my lines and performed the play. In the grand scheme of things, I did a phenomenal job although, there are many things that I could improve upon.

The first thing I could improve would be my body language. In the beginning, I walk unconfidently and slowly. This is not the way Tybalt would have walked. Additionally, my emotion is calm at times; but, it should be angry consistently threw out the play. When Acting my voice didn't always reflect anger. I could have improved this by putting emphasis on certain words. Additionally, once again in the sword fight my footwork is off. I have never been good with my feet so, working on my walk was a challenge. During the swordfight I inched back, which isn't something Tybalt would have done. Additionally, the sword fights were in a straight line which wouldn't happen in reality. I could have made this more realistic. Additionally, when I stab Mercutio at the end it is a very slow stab. This attack could have been more diligent. Additionally, when I fall at the end, I fall like a girl. It's a very graceful fall; instead, it should be a hard fall to the death. These are some of the things I could have improved on. Besides the faults I made, I did many things exceptionally well.

My work went beyond successfully memorizing my script. I improved my facial expressions drastically. My body language showed more anger expressing Tybalt's emotions. Although their sword fights weren't perfect they were far better than they were in the beginning. Every hit was planned out. In addition to the fights, my verbal expressions improved. My voice was less monotone and showed more emotion. My fall was more dramatic than when we first performed the play. There were many things that we did well in this play, even though performing this play may not have been the easiest task to achieve.

This play was performed by three people with limited acting experience. Performing was certainly a challenge because I had never done it before. It was something unusual to me. I remember in the begging when Ms. Guarnio gave me advice. She said to yell and get angry. This seemed bazaar at the time. I imagined myself yelling in the hallway or on the stage and thinking how weird it would be. It was an alienated concept to me. Then as I continued working on the play, I began to realize she was right. With this, I began to portray my character better.

As mentioned before my acting became significantly better when I began to act like Tybalt. I began to actually get angry in the play. With the exception of a few mistakes, I did a decent job performing Tybalt.

When acting as Tybalt, I expressed many literary features. I portrayed a tone of anger, which could have g the audience an anxious mood. In the structure of the play, we had the actors at the front of the stage to emphasize the importance of the actors over the props. The skit had a theme of death and anger. I used body language to express this reoccurring anger.

Overall, this play was a success and went beyond my original expectations for the play. My acting was better than I imagined myself capable of. I am proud of my acting and think that everyone in my group did an excellent job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bap3zN_mc8g

Typically, when I think of play's I think of very long, boring, and old skits of a movie. However, this play was nothing like I expected it to be. It was anything but boring. The actors did a phenomenal job. Not only did they memorise their countless lines but their emotions and talent went beyond what I could ever do in a play. Additionally, they found a way to turn what could have been a potentially boring play into an entertaining and lively play.

In the play, the only person I know is John Jang. He had an amazing performance. It's amazing that he was able to memorise all his lines. Additionally, he has a booming voice making him perfect for his character. Besides John's amazing performance, the play was very entertaining. 

Throughout the play, there were borderline inappropriate jokes. I always thought these were quite funny. Additionally, I thought the drunk did a very good job playing his role and talking in a drunk voice. These things kept me interested in the play throughout the play.

The stage setting also surprised me. When I first walked in I had my doubts about how the play could be set up the way it was and work. How can they perform it so that three different sides can see it? To my surprise, it worked out a lot better than I had thought. Although sometimes someone's back was towards me, someone was always facing me. In addition to the stage set up, the props and costumes were amazing.

Everyone was in a costume that fit the play. Whatever they drank, made a good substitution for wine. While I was watching this play, I remember wondering what if there not thirsty in real life, because some of them were downing the wine. All the props and costumes were on point for this play. Furthermore, everything in this play was on point leading to a great success.

All of these actors did a stupendous job. The work of these varsity actors definitely was shown in their performance. They all mush have spent countless hour's learning their lines and acting out the play. In the end, it paid off because they did an outstanding job.

Acting in a play is about more than reading a script, and goes beyond basic acting where every detail counts such as: how you talk, how you stand, how you walk... (Apparently, I've been told I walk like a girl). Everything you do on the stage matters. In this last week we have been improving the nitty bitty things in the play.

The fist step in this process was to fix my so called girl walk. In the beginning, we we added a stomp at the end of the line 'to strike him dead' this adds more emphasis to the scene. Although I've been told I walk like a girl, I decided to walk normally, because the more I tried the worse it became. Whenever I tried walking like Tybalt it ended up looking like I was trying to be someone from a marching band. The easiest way to fix my walking was to limit my movement. Trying to fix my walk was like teaching a dog how to fly. With little success we moved on to the next issue.
Somehow, our heroic fight to the death would turn into a happy fight to the death... Happiness is like the black plague, as soon as one person breaks character it spreads to everyone. In moments the scene is ruined. This happened several times throughout the play and our emotions would bleed threw at the worst times. I took a very round about approach to this. It started with the question, what do I do when I'm angry?
I clench my fists, narrow my eyes, and have a serious look on my face. Thats when I realized that I need to flex. Although that may sound weird, its a natural instinct. When bears get scarred they get on there hind legs, look big and road. Similarly, I need to stand up straight, and flex every muscle in my body. Somehow, flexing stops me from smiling. It allows me to feel the anger rather than imagine it. Now that I can feel the anger I need to express it throughout my body. This raised an important question; what should I do with my arm's?
Tybalt is not a clown, he is a man. Arm movement simply takes away from the play. It makes it look like a joke. Tybalt is someone of class, he won't wave his arms around like a lunatic. Keeping my arms by my side is the easiest way to solve this problem. We will keep extraneous movements to a minimum in this play. After working on arm placement we worked on sword fighting.
It's easy, just to stab the other person, right? The only problem is, it isn't that easy. Sword fights are full of awkward moments that can lead to problems. They need to be planned out or there will be an awkward moment where someone doesn't know wether to swing or not. Strategically, we planned out when we would kill each other, by taking turns on the offensive and defensive. On the second defensive attack I would leave an opening for romeo to kill me, where my sword would pummel back and I would fall to the ground. Even fight scenes can be organized.
Organization is key. Everything in our play is planned out, and ready to be performed. Everything from expressing emotions, to how we walk is covered in this play. With luck we should be able to videotape the play successfully, monday. Throughout my time working with both Ethan and Veronica, everyone has improved dramatically, and will truly have an outstanding performance monday.

On Monday, we performed our play. On this day we received feedback. I was told I seemed lifeless and needed a specific emotion. I can work on this by continually trying to think of something that makes me mad at Romeo and Mercutio throughout the play. We were told that our play didn't have much expression in it and that we should put more passion in it. I can improve on this by speaking with passion and confidence, with my head up. Additionally, we received feedback that the swords were too loud and our facial expressions needed to be more serious. On the other hand, we were not loud enough. In order for people to hear us, we can talk louder during the sword scene and be quieter with the swords. We were told we needed to be louder and act more violently in the fight scenes. We can do this by pushing and shoving each other in our fight scenes and really getting in each other's faces. Our group was told that we needed more movement during the play. We can fix this be adding pacing in the play and movement back in forth during the fight scenes. I was also told to make my death more dramatic and enthusiastic. When I die I can have my sword go flying, and fall to the ground more realistically. Lastly, Ms. Guarino gave some more advice. She put a lot of emphasis on being more evil, madder,  and to have more intense sword fights. Working on all of these things it will undoubtedly make our play better.

On Tuesday, we didn't get much done, because we still had to watch more plays be acted. For the little time we had, we got feedback from Ms. Guarino. She basically told us to be more lively in the play. It is a dramatic fight scene where we kill each other. It should be emotional and intense. It should be physical and loud. We were able to run through the play twice. In both of these run-through of the play, we made remarkable improvements. We incorporated the feedback we got into the play. We were all loud when we spoke and did a better job staying angry. Additionally, we got in each other's faces when we fought and weren't so far apart. When there was no movement I would pace back in forth. In addition to movement, this pacing reveals the mood that I would be anxious or worried. We made the fighting more realistic and included pushing and shoving. Veronica talked louder during the fight scene. Ethan and I both worked on making our deaths more realistic. This was hard however because if we just threw ourselves on the ground it would hurt so we had to find the right balance. We made significant improvements on Tuesday taking in the feedback that we received on Monday. However, Thursday I was sick and wasn't able to help act the play, so my group acted it without me. Although we had limited time acting this week, in the little time we did have we made significant improvements.

Monologue

TYBALT - Down Center

This, by his voice, should be a Montague.

Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave

Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,

To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?

Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,

To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.

Tis he, that villain Romeo.

NEW SCENE

TYBALT - Down Left

Gentlemen, good e’en. A word with one of you.

Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.

MERCUTIO - Center Right

Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels?

An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear

nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick; here’s

that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!

Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.

I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

(Enter Romeo.)

TYBALT

Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.

MERCUTIO - Down Right

But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.

Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower.

Your Worship in that sense may call him “man.”

TYBALT - Down Center

Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford

No better term than this: thou art a villain.

ROMEO - Up Right

Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee

Doth much excuse the appertaining rage

To such a greeting. Villain am I none.

Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.

TYBALT

Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries

That thou hast done me. Therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO - Center Right

I do protest I never injured thee

But love thee better than thou canst devise

Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.

And so, good Capulet, which name I tender

As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.

MERCUTIO - Down Center

O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!

]Alla stoccato carries it away.

(He draws)

Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?

TYBALT

What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO

Good king of cats, nothing but one of your

nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as

you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the

eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher

by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your

ears ere it be out.

TYBALT

I am for you.

(He draws)

ROMEO - Down Center

Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO

Come, sir, your passado.

(They fight. )

ROMEO

beat down their weapons.

Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!

Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath

Forbidden bandying in Verona streets:

Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!

(TYBALT under ROMEO's arm stabs MERCUTIO, and flies with his followers)

MERCUTIO - Down Left

I am hurt.

A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.

Is he gone, and hath nothing?

(MERCUTIO Exits)

NEW SCENE…

ROMEO - Down Left

This day's black fate on more days doth depend;

This but begins the woe, others must end.

Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!

Away to heaven, respective lenity,

And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!

(Re-enter TYBALT) Up Right

Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again,

That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul

Is but a little way above our heads,

Staying for thine to keep him company:

Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.

TYBALT - Down Center

Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,

Shalt with him hence.

ROMEO - Down Center

This shall determine that.

(They fight; TYBALT falls)

ROMEO

O, I am fortune's fool!

Angry

Confident

Content

Ambiguity