WHAT’S THE PLOT?
The cast are divided into to two teams: Montegues and Caplets. They are given a bag each with numerous paragraphs that contain the synopsis of the play’s plot. It’s a hard task. They know bits, some more than others. We establish what we know; I establish what they don’t know and we agree to have a ‘cinema night’ one evening after school. [It has to be the modern version and we need popcorn.] After being laughed at because I said I’d bring in the video as apparently you can only use the term DVD nowadays, we move on.
Cast are given scripts and allocated parts. We look at the first two lines of the prologue: “Two households both alike in dignity”. I’m happy everyone knows that the two households are Montagues and Capulets and we iron out any pronunciation issues and make sure everyone knows that it’s Romeo who is the Montague and Juliet is Capulet.
WHO ARE THESE FAMILIES?
We know that they are “both alike in dignity” and that they both must have a degree of wealth and power within their city [Verona] and that they are enemies of each other. A couple of the cast members picked up on the words “ancient grudge” in the prologue and they said that they felt like “the families had hated each other for so long, they didn’t even know how or why they’re feuding began”.
As we are all in agreement to produce a modern version of script, I present the idea that perhaps the Capulet’s are rich and celebrity like, where as the Montague’s are rich and more business like. The cast like the idea of the frivolous Capulets, but want the Montagues to be more like organised gangsters – ‘a bit like the Godfather’.
So, we were starting to build up a picture of these two families. The cast got into two groups and I asked them to imagine that they were a fly on the wall in either the Capulet or Montague house. What could they see? What could they hear? What did it smell like? One person scribed as everyone in the group built on what the last person had offered: “I see a leopard-print carpets”; the next “I see white leather sofas”.
See images for results of our created environments:
I then asked the cast to lie down and shut their eyes. I read out each of the two different worlds and asked them to picture what they had created. After, I asked them about the atmosphere the homes created. How does it feel to be in the two homes? The general consensus was that the Montague house is “more for show than a home” not somewhere you could live in, “very neat and organized”. The Capulet household is a more inviting and homely space. A party house… “sounds bloody great”!
Time to get moving. We do the “click-catch” game as a focus warm-up. After a short movement exercise, walking around the room in different ‘states’ we begin to ‘see’ the two different households by doing the what I call “Resevoir Dog walk”: with the cast split into two groups they take it in turns to walk towards each other – first as the Capulets, then as the Montagues. The gangs walk towards their audience; the very nature of the forward force within the movement is threatening; however, they contain different qualities that are hard to put into words. Both groups presented similar interpretations of the family walking in this Gang-like formation. The Capulet’s movement had a stronger sense of freedom and more attitude than the Montagues and although formation was not thought about prior to the activity the strength and controlled movement of the Montagues gave them an air of order and discipline.
QUSETIONS ARE ARISING:
With a strengthening sense of the environments and movement within the two households, this brings about questions that we need to address:
1.What is the place [Verona] like in which these two households are situated?
2.What impact does the emerging lifestyles of the two families have on characterisation and the interpersonal relationships between the characters?
IDEAS BEGIN TO FLOW:
The cast were asked to begin to consider these questions in light of our modern interpretation and flipped genders. How are these characters beginning to emerge for us? We are beginning to have a lot to play with!
Eleanor and Daniel came up with the idea that Montague and his personal ‘right-hand woman’ who is to be a combination of the characters Lady Montague and Abraham are often at odds with each other, portraying a love/hate relationship. I like this idea, although I feel it was born out of them desperately wanting to absolve any possibility that may result in them having to have a passionate snog! But there is still time to develop this subtext into some kind of oppressed sexual tension! Mwhahaha!
THE OPENING:
We go back to the script and read the first two pages. Why has Shakespeare started the play like this? What is he trying to achieve? What do the audience need to know?
We realise that the prologue tells you the whole story before it even starts! We decide that the opening “Do you bite your thumb at us sir” fight scene is important because we need to establish the following facts during the opening of the play:
1. The two different households The depth of their hatred
2. The aggression/danger and level of violence involved.
3. We also agree we need to present and make clear as many of the characters as possible, as soon as possible.
INSPIRATION FOR OPENING SEQUENCE FROM FRANTIC ASSEMBLY:
In class, prior to this first rehearsal we did a workshop, based on a devising technique by Frantic Assembly. See website for demo: Click for link
We played around with the devising technique showing our ideas and working out what worked and didn’t work. We improvised loosely to the devising technique to look for incidental moments that were working for us and played around with different styles and number of performers. We added subtext through facial expressions and then this began to impact upon the movement.
I wanted to see if we could develop this use of physicality to create an essence of the two families on stage as an opening sequence. Could we introduce props to this way of working? If so what props would represent each family?
Suggestions were as follows:
Capulets: Champagne Glasses / stacks/wedges of money [paper] / cigars
Montague: Briefcases / documents / pens / envelopes / packages
INTERESTING RESULTS / DEVELOPMENTS:
The cast were grouped as follows and after each grouping is a short account of notable moments that came form the exercise:
Juliet and Tybalt: they played around with the props such as make-up. It was suggested that they were getting ready for a night out, which then impacted on…
Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio: who decided that they should also be getting ready for a night out.
This is brilliant as we then discussed that it gives a real sense of time and purpose to the scene. It would also lead us nicely to the idea that the following fight scene, takes place during a night out on the town!
Capulet, his maids and Lady Capulet: as ‘french maid’ style characters the idea of these three nurses fussing over Capulet. The movement that developed showed the girls manipulating him – moving him into relaxing positions [puppet–like?] drinking his champagne, smoking his cigar, he didn’t lift a finger. The movement and concept were powerful. It clearly showed Capulet at the head of the household, the wealth and his social position.
Montague and his right-hand lady: we mirrored this concept for Montague, using the props that are mentioned early.
After employing this devising technique and adapting it to our means we now have a strong idea of how the first moments of our play will run!
The workshop was at an end at this point, so watch this space to see how these scenes develop and follow our developmental workshops!
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