Grade 6 Flashcards
Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s monologue Act 4 Scene 3 introduction
Hello my name is Arya, and today for my Grade 6 Lamda acting exam I will perform Romeo and Juillet Act 4 Scene 3 Juliet’s monology by William Shakespeare. Written in approximately 1594, in this scene Juliet is saying goodbye to the nurse and she is rushing the nurse out of her room as she she says what she know to be her final farewell to the nurse as she is nervous and she is about to drink the vial of potion which will send her into a sleep. This scene is set in her bedroom.
Boys, Sophie’s monologue Introduction
The second piece I will be performing is Sophie’s monologue from Boys by Ella Hickson. I will play the character Sophie. This piece was written in 2012. In this scene Sophie is talking to her boyfriend about how she doesn’t feel guilt about her ex-boyfriend’s suicide and how she feels happy that he is dead. This piece is set in her apartment kitchen.
JULIET Romeo and Juliet Act 4 Scene 3
Farewell.
[Change Direction]
God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me. —
[Change Direction]
Nurse! — What should she do here?
[Change Direction]
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial. What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no. This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
What if it be a poison which the friar
[Change Direction]
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is, and yet methinks it should not,
[Change Direction]
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
[Down to the floor]
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place —
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort —
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad —
Environèd with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefather’s joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud,
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone
As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains?
O look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink — I drink to thee.
[She drinks the potion and falls upon her bed behind the closed curtain]
Sophie’s monologue from Boys by Ella Hickson
SOPHIE: Do you have you ever actually felt any… guilt? Because it’s come as a bit of a surprise that, um - you, one- I don’t, can’t actually feel it. Like it’s not something I can generate somehow, like, I - I find myself having to actually summon it, trying to encourage myself and even then I can’t do it. I thought it might be shock at first, and then grief or - but all I can feel is total joy, total - peace. I look at you and I sometimes actuallly make myself think of him, I force him into my head and I don’t feel guilty. What kind of person does that make me? Sometimes I think it’s because what we have is love, meant to be. That we love each other, yes, Mack, that is what I sometimes think. Is that ridiculous? I sat at his funeral looking at his parents and Benny but all I could think of, all I could feel - was you. But then I look at you and I wonder if it’s actually there. I wonder if I added up the amount of minutes, hours, fucking days I’ve spent thinking about you, the amount of fucking longing I have done - if I added that up and weighed it against anything you’ve ever actually said… But then you do the smallest thing- you make me a cup of tea when I don’t ask, or you touch my hand really lightly in a room full of people and I think no, Sophie, don’t laugh- don’t laugh because it’s real and it’s so much more real because it’s unsaid and unspoken and un-un- it’s so much more real because I can’t touch it, because we can’t say it and I can’t see it. It’s so much more real because I don’t know if it’s there. Please say something… Please….
What are the breathing techniques used in Juliet’s monologue in Romeo and Juliet Act 4 Scene 3?
When you inhale/breath in air enters your lungs, your rib cage expands as the muscles in your ribs contract, your lungs expand, your diaphragm contracts and moves down. The pressure in your lungs decreases and the air comes in.
When you breath out the rib cage moves down and in, the intercostal muscles such as your diaphragm relax and move up, pressure in the lungs increases and the air is pushed out causing your lungs to deflate .When acting I change the way I breath in order to show my emotions.
For example, when I am nervous or anxious I take short quick breathes to show and sense of anxiousness and suggest that my heart is pounding quickly. Or I may choose to hold my breath longer and say my sentences quicker with as few breaths as possible.
In my first piece I contract my diaphragm a less to show that she is nervous about taking the potion and is in denial that something could go wrong. She does not want to say it because then it is like it is real. However in the second scene she uses a more In this pieces she talks through the top of her moth when she is calling for the nurse but the bottom of her mouth when she is talking about the vial as she is conscious someone will hear.
Juliet’s objective in the scene performed?
Juliet’s objective in the scene is to convince herself that the vial is safe to drink and that she should drink it and she will be with Romeo.
Juliet’s role within the context of the play as a whole?
Juliet’s role is as the romantic Heroine and as the only child of Lord and Lady Capulet. She is meant to marry Paris. But she meets Romeo and instantly falls in love with him. Even though she is a Capulet and he is a Montague, and their two families have a long standing rivalry.
What are the breathing techniques used in Sophie’s monologue in Boys?
When you inhale/breath in air enters your lungs, your rib cage expands as the muscles in your ribs contract, your lungs expand, your diaphragm contracts and moves down. The pressure in your lungs decreases and the air comes in.
When you breath out the rib cage moves down and in, the intercostal muscles such as your diaphragm relax and move up, pressure in the lungs increases and the air is pushed out causing your lungs to deflate .When acting I change the way I breath in order to show my emotions.
For example, when I am nervous or anxious I take short quick breathes to show and sense of anxiousness and suggest that my heart is pounding quickly. Or I may choose to hold my breath longer and say my sentences quicker with as few breaths as possible. This is evident when she is talking about she doesn’t feel grief but feels peace and joy.
In the piece when she is shouting she talk larger breaths and her diaphragm contracts a large amount s she talks a top and does not breath in between the words. However when she is talking about all the amazing things that Mac takes smaller breaths as she takes a breath every few words. Her voice in this section of the piece is breathier than when she is shouting.
Sophie’s objective in the scene performed?
Her objective is to explain to her secret lover Mack her feeling about her ex-boyfriend Peter suicide, and she is also trying to justify and make sense of why she doesn’t feel guilty or upset about about his death.
Sophie’s role in the context of the whole play?
She is caught between Benny, her ex-boyfriend’s brother and Mac, who she has fallen madly in love. However when thinking about it and looking closer at the script and wording, I believe that she does understand all to well how serious things are and that she is genuinely upset at herself because she doesn’t understand why she doesn’t feel guilty knowing that the breakdown of their relationship was one of the contributing factors to his decision.
