Entry 12

This has been a fun project, i wish it were the whole exam grade. Ben was a pretty good benvolio and there were some good moments in the play. Yea...I had fun. I never memorized anything but I didn't miss my cues and I had good pronunciation. I had an ok grasp of my character...it was fun.

Entry 11

I WAS LATE TO BOTH THE DRESS REHEARSAL AND OPENING NIGHT!
Woops...i had to run home and get something both days and earlier today i got pulled over on the way back. the show went well, nonetheless, and i was pleased.

entry 10

So i'm on the plane and my dad has a password to use the in flight wifi so i'm able to check my facebook and tumblr and such. I tried to start making a new set of cue cards, but instead I wrote out the Queen Mab's speech FOUR TIMES! If I don't have this memorized...then I don't know what.

MERCUTIO: O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Over men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

Her traces, of the smallest spider web;

Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;

Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled much misfortune bodes.

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

This is she!

Entry 9

So....I never memorized anything. I became pretty lazy. But it was hard to care with other students who were rude and disrespectful *cough* *cough*  We have our dress rehearsal soon and I'm about to go out of town for half a week so hopefully I'll TRY and memorize some stuff. I'm getting on a plane in a couple of hours and I'm going to remake my cue cards so that they are better to look at. Gregory is a pretty easy part nothing too tough about that and Montague just requires good posture and projection of my voice. Mercutio is where it becomes difficult. I need to slow things down and try and get the humor out there.

entry 8

I haven't blogged about any of my other parts. My first part, gregory, is rather easy. I almost have that down.
Montague is pretty easy..just a couple speeches.

entry 7

We haven't worked very much in class and I'm worried that none of this will pull together the way that it should. I think it could be halfway decent if the people who need to work will work.

entry 6

Mercutio is hilarious. Ive been memorizing the queen mabs speech. its not that bad. I like it.

ENTRY 5

Back to Mercutio’s purpose. His obstructive and perverse behavior lays the foreground of romances’ downfall. It’s kind of funny, in a messed up way, that Mercutio dies for a purpose he is unaware of. He doesn’t really like Romeo, in my opinion. His perverse attitude towards Romeo could be seen as contempt which he holds for him. Romeo just gets in the way of things. Mercutio dies because Romeo stands in between him and Tybalt, and Mercutio does not see Tybalts rapier coming at him. He curses both houses with his “a plague ‘o both your houses” bit. And in the end of it all both houses are screwed. They lose their kids. Anyway…enough of this. I need to memorize my stuff, yo.

entry 4

This memorization thing is going a lot smoother. I kinda wish people would take this a bit more seriously and stop bitching about the time they have to spend on it.

entry 3

I’m beginning to understand more of Mercutio’s character. Since the character of Mercutio knows nothing of the real romance story, I am going to remove myself from paying attention to anything that Mercutio is not involved in. Mercutio, just as Autolycus does so in Winter’s Tale, serves as an instrument with which Shakespeare can poke fun at the royalty/wealthy of the show. His sexual perversion of romance almost foreshadows tragedy by degrading the value of romance. With romance not being held widely as a big deal (Juliet’s parents arrange a marriage between her and Paris, whom she does NOT love) the audience can infer from the context of the play a few possibilities of what might be ahead of them. 

entry 2

Ben and I haven’t practiced since class. At first I thought this would be frustrating because only three students in the class, including me, have previous acting experience. However, now I wonder if I’ll be able to handle this myself. Alas, I know I’ll pull through.

Entry 1

The character Mercutio is a clown. He’s the kind of guy that everybody loves, while at the same time, he pisses the large majority of people off. He’s a bit of a jackass. He serves to poke fun, and while he is definitely a witty and comedic character; that is certainly not his only purpose. I’ll have to touch more on that in later journal entries. Today ben (benvolio) and I worked on our first scene together. It’s in act II, the one where the pair is searching for Romeo and Mercutio decides it’s a great time to be a jokester. Here is where the jackass-ery is obvious. He decides to turn EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, into something sexual. In the context of the play, and this is new information to me, Mercutio knows nothing of the existence of a relationship between the “star-cross’d lovers.” He believes Romeo loves Rosaline; his love at the beginning of the show. His sexual innuendos are everywhere. He describes Rosaline from head to toe and then toe to genitalia. He talks of Romeo being sexually aroused. Honestly, I don’t think this character will be too hard for me. I’m a jackass too and I say some of the things Mercutio says, in a more modern tone.