Working with actual actors on our plays was very interesting. The two women helping my group seemed to think that we are on a good track. My general concepts for movement were reinforced, however my interaction with other characters needs a lot of work. I never realized how hard it is to have a stage conversation: not looking completely at the person you are talking to so that the audience can still see your facial expressions.
I didn't consciously think too much about what other actors have done with the role of Romeo until I got to the balcony scene. I think it is nearly impossible to not compare what I am doing to what others have done with that part. I feel very awkward during that scene because Juliet (Emily) is above me and I don't know if I should be just looking up at her or out to the audience or something completely different. The balcony scene is also giving me a better sense of props and scenery and how they make actors feel more comfortable on stage. I think that I should be behind bushes or something while listening to Juliet on the balcony, but we haven't factored anything that elaborate into our prop list.
Blocking our play for the first time also helped us come up with creative ideas for some touchy parts of the play. We have decided that Emily and I will be dancing and my back will be to the audience when it is time to have the "kisses" so that it will look like I am leaning in to kiss her, but this way I won't really have to and we can keep the lines the way that they are in the script (i.e. "You kiss by the book").
Working with the real actors also made us more assertive of what we wanted to do. I know that I felt a lot more comfortable making suggestions and receiving them when someone was there who could say whether or not something would actually look good on a stage. Now the scary part will be expanding what we did in a small space to fit on the actual stage we are performing on.
P.S. I read the handouts for next Monday and I think I am going to be very lost with matching up King Lear and Ran. Maybe it will be a lot easier once I have read the play and watched the movie. I do have to say that it was interesting reading that influence was taken from a "classic" play to make a more "modern" movie. This fact seems to support my idea that there are only so many original stories until people are just piecing together different parts of different stories and mixing up their orders. It also supports the idea that it is okay to "steal" ideas. Shakespeare may have done it so why not everyone else...
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Othello
This was my first time reading and experiencing Othello and I really enjoyed it. This play was similar to Romeo and Juliet to me, because of the relationship between Othello and Desdemona, which is my favorite play. Also, when comparing Othello and Titus Andronicus with the Shakespeare plays I already know, I have noticed a lot of trends that I hadn’t realized existed before, or at least hadn’t been conscious of. Shakespeare seems to write a lot about Italy considering he is not from there, and also inserts several Moorish characters and concepts of those people. There is a connection to Hamlet in this play, as well, in 2.3.376 when Iago talks of pouring poison in Othello’s ear. In this situation, Othello is like the late King Hamlet and Iago is like
I find it interesting that we have been looking at the racial implications of Shakespeare’s plays especially in regards to Othello because, like I stated in class, I didn’t realize he was black until I was a bit into the play. I think that race could be taken out of this play, however the Loomba points we began discussing in class are very convincing. (The first point about Moors not having a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth…” doesn’t really seem to stand out in any part of the play. Othello follows the system of command for the Venetians that he is working for. The second point lends itself to the debate that Desdemona’s father was scared that she would bring black blood into their family line, or was he really just afraid about her going out and tarnishing his political life. The third point makes me think of the end of the play after Othello has killed Desdemona. At this point he is “a spectacle of disobedience to all the world,” but any individual that has just murdered their spouse could be thought of in the same way; therefore, this argument doesn’t really stand to strongly for me. It is much easier to look at the portrayal of Othello as the fourth point says, “ugly and repulsive,” in the movie because we actually see him. The tattoos that he had on and around his head would probably fit this definition because the other characters in the play did not have the same. He stood out from the crowd.) If race were to be taken out of the play, Iago would hate Othello mostly because he wanted his military standing and Brabantio would hate Othello only because he had stolen his daughter, the events could still go on as they have.
I find it interesting that we have been looking at the racial implications of Shakespeare’s plays especially in regards to Othello because, like I stated in class, I didn’t realize he was black until I was a bit into the play. I think that race could be taken out of this play, however the Loomba points we began discussing in class are very convincing. (The first point about Moors not having a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth…” doesn’t really seem to stand out in any part of the play. Othello follows the system of command for the Venetians that he is working for. The second point lends itself to the debate that Desdemona’s father was scared that she would bring black blood into their family line, or was he really just afraid about her going out and tarnishing his political life. The third point makes me think of the end of the play after Othello has killed Desdemona. At this point he is “a spectacle of disobedience to all the world,” but any individual that has just murdered their spouse could be thought of in the same way; therefore, this argument doesn’t really stand to strongly for me. It is much easier to look at the portrayal of Othello as the fourth point says, “ugly and repulsive,” in the movie because we actually see him. The tattoos that he had on and around his head would probably fit this definition because the other characters in the play did not have the same. He stood out from the crowd.) If race were to be taken out of the play, Iago would hate Othello mostly because he wanted his military standing and Brabantio would hate Othello only because he had stolen his daughter, the events could still go on as they have.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Midterm Blog
Prior Reading Development Level
Prior to this Shakespeare class my reading development level was centralized around the text-self level. This level was dominant because I enjoy reading literature that allows me to create a personal relationship with the main character(s). I also tend to read novels more than any other type of literature where the characters are facing situations that I have faced myself or could, realistically, face. These personal connections allow me to generate a mental movie of the story where I try to picture myself as a character. This type of reading is very natural to me and comes easily.
I do make some text-other text connections when I am trying to relate a story to something I have seen before. I generally connect written texts with visual texts so that I can use the visual text as more of a supplement than a comparison tool; and movies tend to be connected to written texts in my head. One very notable connection I made between a movie and a written text was the movie The Island and the book Brave New World. I read Brave New World about six months before I saw The Island but I immediately made the connection. I was informed later that The Island was also a book written by Aldous Huxley.
Rarely did I ever make text-world connections. I am not really sure why this is, other than the fact that I like to put myself in the stories that I read and I am not an overwhelmingly worldly person. When I was a senior in high school my A.P. English teacher facilitated text-world connections with pieces such as Animal Farm, Brave New World, and excerpts from A Modest Proposal. After traveling to Europe I established some text-world connections with places I had seen: i.e. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paris and the Notre Dame cathedral) and Rebecca (Monaco).
Current Reading Development Level
When reading over my blogs for this class I was rather surprised. I never thought of reading my blogs to find out what type of connections I made to the class and to the texts we read and watch, but my findings are interesting. Over the course of the semester, I think my reading level has gone down; however I don’t necessarily believe that my reading level has gone down, more likely my writing level has gone down.
The first blog that I wrote this semester incorporated both text-other text connections and text-self connections. In the opening paragraph of the blog I comment that the movie Becoming Jane follows the general format of turning “real experiences” into entertainment. This connection develops the idea that all literature is “creative non-fiction.” In the second paragraph of blog one I talked briefly about my idea that almost all, if not all, literature is, at some level, creative non-fiction. This comment is text-self because it was me imposing one of my ideas about literature onto the movie Shakespeare in Love.
The second blog brings in text-other text and text-world connections with the text-other text references being more obvious. I made a comparison between Romeo and Juliet the play that William Shakespeare wrote and Romeo and Juliet the movie that Baz Lhurman directed throughout the blog entry. This comparison was at the heart of that particular blog because I found it very interesting, and easy, to compare the two. Making text-other text comparisons is incredibly easy to do if one is looking at a movie version of a book/play, which was the case here.
On a less obvious level, I brought out the idea of a Western Duel at the beginning of the movie Romeo and Juliet. This could be thought of a text-other text comparison, but I would like to think of it as a text-world connection because I think the duel was used in the movie to bridge a gap for people. Lhurman wanted people to be able to connect to this fight and so he put it in the format of a Western movie which most Americans are familiar with.
My three most recent blogs are very text-self. They incorporate my personal opinions of certain portions of the movie Titus, my feelings on the name that my group chose for our playgroup, and my thoughts on the idea of the importance of hair and make-up to a play/movie. These blogs were far easier to compose than the other blogs because I didn’t have to think as hard to put them together. I still had to pull together and sort through my thoughts, but deliberately establishing connections of text-other text and text-world is more complicated.
How to advance in Reading Development Levels
In order to advance my reading levels I think I need to keep a more open mind. Like I said before, I enjoy making text-self connections, but I need to begin to think more regularly beyond myself. Many Shakespeare plays currently hold personal connections for me because of things that have happened while reading or viewing them, and these become the things that I want to write about in my blog. If I am able to step outside of my comfort zone I will be able to reach the text-world connections on a more regular basis.
I will try to give myself more time to read the actual plays and spend reflecting on the movies after I watch them. The addition of more time on the given activities should allow me to stretch what I am seeing to incorporate the information of the setting of the story. I think I skip too much over the setting and relationship subtleties to see only what is happening; for example, in Titus Andronicus I never would have thought about the roles of races, gender, ethnicity of the actors, and many other things we discussed in class. My gut does not tell me to pay attention to these details until I start to discuss them with other people. Also, the language of Shakespeare can be very difficult to understand, so spending more time picking apart the words will help me establish more connections.
I would like to get my thoughts more vocal, whether in class or outside of it, so that I can realize the larger picture of what I am thinking. As a class we had touched on the potential homosexual interpretation of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet which is something that I didn’t realize I had thought about before until we began talking about it in class. The conversations along in this class are making me a much better reader, especially of Shakespeare.
One of the easiest ways for me to upgrade my blogs, however, is for me to spend more time on them. If I spent more time thinking about what I was going to write before I sat down to write it, I think my blogs would hold much more valuable information and insights.
Prior to this Shakespeare class my reading development level was centralized around the text-self level. This level was dominant because I enjoy reading literature that allows me to create a personal relationship with the main character(s). I also tend to read novels more than any other type of literature where the characters are facing situations that I have faced myself or could, realistically, face. These personal connections allow me to generate a mental movie of the story where I try to picture myself as a character. This type of reading is very natural to me and comes easily.
I do make some text-other text connections when I am trying to relate a story to something I have seen before. I generally connect written texts with visual texts so that I can use the visual text as more of a supplement than a comparison tool; and movies tend to be connected to written texts in my head. One very notable connection I made between a movie and a written text was the movie The Island and the book Brave New World. I read Brave New World about six months before I saw The Island but I immediately made the connection. I was informed later that The Island was also a book written by Aldous Huxley.
Rarely did I ever make text-world connections. I am not really sure why this is, other than the fact that I like to put myself in the stories that I read and I am not an overwhelmingly worldly person. When I was a senior in high school my A.P. English teacher facilitated text-world connections with pieces such as Animal Farm, Brave New World, and excerpts from A Modest Proposal. After traveling to Europe I established some text-world connections with places I had seen: i.e. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paris and the Notre Dame cathedral) and Rebecca (Monaco).
Current Reading Development Level
When reading over my blogs for this class I was rather surprised. I never thought of reading my blogs to find out what type of connections I made to the class and to the texts we read and watch, but my findings are interesting. Over the course of the semester, I think my reading level has gone down; however I don’t necessarily believe that my reading level has gone down, more likely my writing level has gone down.
The first blog that I wrote this semester incorporated both text-other text connections and text-self connections. In the opening paragraph of the blog I comment that the movie Becoming Jane follows the general format of turning “real experiences” into entertainment. This connection develops the idea that all literature is “creative non-fiction.” In the second paragraph of blog one I talked briefly about my idea that almost all, if not all, literature is, at some level, creative non-fiction. This comment is text-self because it was me imposing one of my ideas about literature onto the movie Shakespeare in Love.
The second blog brings in text-other text and text-world connections with the text-other text references being more obvious. I made a comparison between Romeo and Juliet the play that William Shakespeare wrote and Romeo and Juliet the movie that Baz Lhurman directed throughout the blog entry. This comparison was at the heart of that particular blog because I found it very interesting, and easy, to compare the two. Making text-other text comparisons is incredibly easy to do if one is looking at a movie version of a book/play, which was the case here.
On a less obvious level, I brought out the idea of a Western Duel at the beginning of the movie Romeo and Juliet. This could be thought of a text-other text comparison, but I would like to think of it as a text-world connection because I think the duel was used in the movie to bridge a gap for people. Lhurman wanted people to be able to connect to this fight and so he put it in the format of a Western movie which most Americans are familiar with.
My three most recent blogs are very text-self. They incorporate my personal opinions of certain portions of the movie Titus, my feelings on the name that my group chose for our playgroup, and my thoughts on the idea of the importance of hair and make-up to a play/movie. These blogs were far easier to compose than the other blogs because I didn’t have to think as hard to put them together. I still had to pull together and sort through my thoughts, but deliberately establishing connections of text-other text and text-world is more complicated.
How to advance in Reading Development Levels
In order to advance my reading levels I think I need to keep a more open mind. Like I said before, I enjoy making text-self connections, but I need to begin to think more regularly beyond myself. Many Shakespeare plays currently hold personal connections for me because of things that have happened while reading or viewing them, and these become the things that I want to write about in my blog. If I am able to step outside of my comfort zone I will be able to reach the text-world connections on a more regular basis.
I will try to give myself more time to read the actual plays and spend reflecting on the movies after I watch them. The addition of more time on the given activities should allow me to stretch what I am seeing to incorporate the information of the setting of the story. I think I skip too much over the setting and relationship subtleties to see only what is happening; for example, in Titus Andronicus I never would have thought about the roles of races, gender, ethnicity of the actors, and many other things we discussed in class. My gut does not tell me to pay attention to these details until I start to discuss them with other people. Also, the language of Shakespeare can be very difficult to understand, so spending more time picking apart the words will help me establish more connections.
I would like to get my thoughts more vocal, whether in class or outside of it, so that I can realize the larger picture of what I am thinking. As a class we had touched on the potential homosexual interpretation of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet which is something that I didn’t realize I had thought about before until we began talking about it in class. The conversations along in this class are making me a much better reader, especially of Shakespeare.
One of the easiest ways for me to upgrade my blogs, however, is for me to spend more time on them. If I spent more time thinking about what I was going to write before I sat down to write it, I think my blogs would hold much more valuable information and insights.
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