Theatre and Dance @ UMW Blogs

Well, today’s matinee was the final performance of “Romeo & Juliet.”
I’ll be honest, I was ready for it to be over. Not that I didn’t enjoy the experience, because I did; I learned a lot about myself as an actress & how I work. But I feel this play, for me, has done its time. After 5 months with the text & 3 months on a stage, I’m quite ready to relax. (And by relax I mean turn my attention back to school & exams.)

I was stricken today, however, by how sad I was to relinquish my costume. No, my dress. As usual, I got far too attached to my clothing. I realized today how much I love the shuffle it makes across the floors – & the fine layer of dust I earned on the bottom of the outer layer. I love the structure, the shine, the detail.

I’ve been very fortunate to have played characters with such fine taste in clothing. And I’ve always felt so at home in these beautiful pieces from olden times. They supply so much grace & propriety; they speak volumes for who I’ve been as characters.

Which can often be problematic, because every character I’ve played has been so structured, so confined. But Mrs. Capulet has been by far the worst. Living with her for 5 months now, wearing her clothes, biting her tongue – it’s all been so terribly saddening. I’m ready to let her go (but maybe not her pearl-dotted apparel).

But tonight, before I bid my fond goodbyes to my fellow cast members (…the cast members I’m sure to see tomorrow on campus), I did something I’ve been yearning to do since the beginning: I got to be a Shakespearean boy. I put on Paul’s (Mercutio’s) outfit – & my god, it was wonderful. To see my legs, to freely move my arms, to get a rascally cape – it was amazing.

But, the show is over now. The set is probably being deconstructed as we speak (my yawning  home in which I hung imaginary tapestries & yelled at the servants for not dusting well enough). The costumes are being washed & tucked away in storage. The lines are echoing in the rafters along with those from “Alice in Wonderland” in 1912.

Many of us will be back on that stage later this year, devoting our nights to yet another all-consuming production – but many of us will return as audience members, graduated & pursuing their careers. And one day, we’ll all be unrecognizable faces hanging in the lobby, the only identification being a little silver placard. And perhaps, fifty years from now, “Romeo & Juliet” will again grace Klein theatre, & our cast pictures & programs will be dug up & put beneath glass.

But for right now, we exist, & the play is still “yet but green in earth.”

Goodnight, “Romeo & Juliet.” Parting is, well, sweet.

Maybe you didn’t know this, but this play was actually supposed to be called “Romeo & Juliet & Peter.” It’s true, Shakespeare told me so when he came to see our Invite Dress Rehearsal. Clearly I’m just kidding, but in all honestly, somebody could write a whole play about Peter the servant if they wanted to. That’s the beauty of Shakespeare’s plays, there are all of these interesting supporting parts that make more happen than most people realize. I mean, Romeo wouldn’t have even known about the Capulet party if Peter didn’t need someone to read the invite list to him, due to his illiteracy. Our director, Gregg Stull, said something during one of our first rehearsals that has really helped me to develop my character throughout this process. He said it’s important to think of where the character is coming from immediately before they come on stage, and let me tell you – Peter does some zany stuff offstage. I would tell you all about it but – well you’re the audience and it’s the theatre, parts of it are supposed to be up to your imagination I’m writing this during the second weekend of our run, and I really hope that if you haven’t seen the show yet you are fervently awaiting to see it tonight, tomorrow, or next weekend. If you have seen the show already, thank you so much for coming and I really do hope you come to see it again, so you can take a look around at all of the interesting details you might have missed the first go-round *cough, cough* Peter *cough, cough* Thanks again! Come see the Peter Show, I mean Romeo & Juliet!!

[I started writing a blog on the 2nd, but ended up saving it as a draft. So here's a compilation post:]

4.2.10
So, opening night went really well. Surprisingly well, actually.

I’ll admit, when that curtain rose for the prologue, I was terrified. I don’t know why. I was fine in my scenes, no stage fright, but standing there & facing the audience was for some reason absolutely terrible… But aside from feeling incredibly awkward & scared, the prologue went well I think. Hopefully no one noticed my face twitching.

In moments like that, I like to think about the aspects audiences will never see, like us standing there, waiting for the curtain to rise. They’ll never see the tension written on our faces; they’ll never see us fidgeting, or making sure our costumes are straight, or hugging one another & quietly whispering, “Break a leg!”

There was such an unexpected, overwhelming feeling of comradery for me last night. All this time, throughout the process, I’ve looked at others as colleagues, or scene partners, or my friends in Renaissance clothing. But last night, there was a feeling I’ve never felt in any other production before. We were all a part of this… experience. This beautiful, grand experience.

And I also felt a strong affection for Gregg, who I know has worked & thought harder than all of us combined. He felt like a father last night, someone who had pushed us to see more for ourselves, & someone who waited patiently when we couldn’t see it. He’s been a wonderful teacher in so many ways.

There’s also the designers & the crew, who have ornamented this show to the finest of details. They’ve no doubt worked their fingers to the bone for this show, & it’s beautifully apparent.
And there’s something so wonderfully sweet about the dressers. Maybe this is more from a female’s perspective (since the guys don’t typically need too much help with their costumes) – but the girls who help me don these beautiful, voluminous dresses & ensure my wig is on straight & even slip my shoes on my feet… I feel very close to them throughout the show. There’s just such a maternal attention to detail when they’re helping us dress.

I know the whole “thanking the crew” thing is overdone – but this show is huge. And without every person working so hard – whether it be in the box office or in the shops or backstage – it wouldn’t be what it is.

4.5.10
Another good omen the other night. Two slivers of a rainbow on either side of the sun – which I suppose might have been a semi-visible double rainbow. It was really pretty.

Anyway, we won’t be performing again until Thursday, which is a really odd feeling. I almost don’t know what to do with all this free time… But the shows have been going well.

What’s interesting, though, is that I suddenly have these urges to play with new things, urges I never felt during rehearsals – which, I’m sure, is a director’s nightmare. Obviously I’m going to curb these urges, because I have no idea if they’d work or not, but it’s pretty obnoxious that I’m only now beginning to see certain lines in a different way.

As far as Lady Capulet goes, I realized today that she is the least fun character I’ve ever played. And this isn’t from the perspective of a bored actress; she, as a human, leads a truly un-fun life.  So confined, so dull & clipped. My only expressive outbursts are those of anger or grief. No jokes, no true joy, no exuberance…

But it’s definitely been a new challenge. And I appreciate her for that.

Opening night tonight. Lots of good omens for it (first day of April, full moon…). I think it’s going to be a good night.

Although, I’ll admit, I’m nervous. We’ve been getting notes from Gregg these last 3 nights, & last night I received quite a few big ones, & it makes me nervous to change things opening night. But we’ll see.

It’s so hard to believe this night is here already. I wish we could put a little note in the program explaining to audience members just how hard we’ve worked on this show. 10-12 hour rehearsals every weekend, 4-6 hours every weekday… Countless nights of lost sleep, piles of neglected homework, lists of missed calls… All building up to this night & the next three weeks to follow.

But the process is not what the audience is going to see tonight. They’re here for the product. And no matter how hard we’ve worked & how much time we’ve given, if the product isn’t well-received, we’ve failed. So here’s hoping we’ve created something good.

We open Thursday. If I could use an expletive here, I would.

We have 3 more rehearsals to fine-tune this show & whittle it to perfection (well, as close to perfection as possible).
And in these next 3 days, I’ve made a vow to myself that I’m going to throw everything I have into it. I’m going to push myself to the point of emotional exhaustion.

I’ve actually decided to dedicate this show to my mom, who’s been going through a lot of tough things these past few months. I know this is a bit personal, & probably quite cheesy, but I guess I wanted to cement this dedication in writing. But after all these months of hard-work, I want the production to mean something on a personal level.

Ok, this blog is going to have nothing to do with my character directly, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about during rehearsals lately.

The boys of Verona (specifically Tybalt, Mercutio, Romeo, & Benvolio) are young. Probably between the ages of 16 & 20. And every night I watch them fight & die over a feud they probably don’t even know the original causes of. With each generation, the true story behind the battling families gets more & more blurry – yet these young boys perpetuate the feud blindly. They were simply taught to hate the names Montague or Capulet. Hell, even the older generations like myself might not even know the reasons why we’re fighting; maybe we too are simply blindly following in our parents’ footsteps.

With this in mind, Tybalt & Mercutio’s death scenes are particularly interesting to me.
Here’s a group of teenage boys, on a dull day, in a dull city, looking for something to distract them from the summer heat & their boredom… so they pick a fight that goes a little too far.

It makes me wonder: have these boys ever seen death before? Is this fight the first to end in heavy blood? If so, how would such young boys deal with that?

What about the adults of Verona? Has our feud caused deaths before, maybe when we were young?
If not, how would we react to these teenage boys killing one another over the prejudices we passed onto them? These are boys we’ve probably known or seen since they were little children. Maybe we even caught little Tybalt & Mercutio playing together once & ordered them to never do it again.

So what happens when it goes a little too far? How does the city change when it sees Mercutio & Tybalt bleeding on the hot street? Does it only fuel the fire between the two families – or do guilt & doubt begin to secretly bubble up?

…not that any of these questions matter, because I personally wouldn’t be able to get the answers across to audiences – but it’s still interesting to ponder.