Written Crouse Draft 1

Rujian, Zhou

IB Lit & Perf

Ms. Guarino

12/2/2016

Written Coursework: Analysis of Performance Based on Act IV Scene II from Romeo And Juliet

As one of the most famous plays in the world, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet tells story between two star crossed lovers. I and my partner chose Act 4 Scene 2 from the play and performance the conflict between Lord Capulet, play by me,  and Juliet, play by my partner in this scene. This scene is not the highlight of the play, but it shows how the families affect the love between Romeo and Juliet and it is the lead of the tragedy ending for the play. In the performance, I first analysis Lord Capulet’s lines, concluded his characteristics, emotions change, and main purpose in the scene; these analyses make up the guidelines for my performance, which I act out the character by body languages, tones and facial expressions.

The Act 4 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet tells about a conflicts between Lord Capulet and his daughter Juliet. Lord Capulet is one of the major characters in the play. He is the father of Juliet and the head of the Capulet family. As a person who in charge of the big family of Capulet, he controls a lot of power and money. As well as he sees his family reputation better than many things, such as his own daughter’s happiness. After Tybalt's death, Lord Capulet wants to use Juliet’s wedding with Paris to raise his family’s reputation again. When Juliet refers him, Lord Capulet gets mad for her disobedient and decided to exile her. After Juliet confessed her guilty to disobeying Lord Capulet, his emotions changes from angry to happy immediately. From these, I see this character as a dominant, greed, and controlling person.

The emotion change of Lord Capulet from angry to happy is significant in the scene. For me, this not only help me analysis his characteristics, but also a good direction for me in performance. Lord Capulet, who shouts to his servants about the marriage arrangements in the beginning of the scene. He wants to make the wedding that shock the whole city, and impressive all his guests. I see this from his conversations to his servants, as he says “Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks” (4.2.2) and “Go, be gone” (4.2.8) However, his daughter Juliet disobey his expectation and refused to marry Paris. So I see his anger and anxiety, as he says “We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time” (4.2.9). The word “Shall” shows that Lord Capulet has a perfect plan in his mind, but the plan is interrupted by Juliet’s disobedient. Then He reminds himself that Juliet went to Friar Lawrence and did not come back yet. He gets more angry and describes his own daughter “A peevish welf-will’d harlotry it is” (4.2.13). When he meets Juliet, he says “How now, my headstrong” (4.2.15) to show he is not please to see Juliet. He is angry, anxious and nervous about Juliet’s wedding. It is impressive that Shakespeare used only foreshadowing here to infer readers that Lord Capulet is angry.

Following by this, Juliet, who listen to Friar Lawrence, lies to Lord Capulet, and pretends to agree the marriage. The altitude of Lord Capulet changes rapidly. He repeated his emotion by using words like “glad”, “well” and “This is as’t should be”(4.2.28-29) to Juliet. These repetition clearly show his emotion changes from angry to happy. His attitude toward Juliet, which he says “stand up”(4.2.29), also shows he is happy instead of angry at the moment. Furthermore, Lord Capulet can not sleep because of happiness, as he says “I will walk myself to County Paris” (4.2.44-45). His mind is full about the bright future he dreams about, as he says “All things shall be well”(4.2.40). He does not aware that inside of his daughter, the seed of the tragedy is secretly growing. This significant differences of Lord Capulet’s emotions that expressed in the text give me a good direction in performance

In the scene, the main purpose of Lord Capulet is to hold Juliet’s wedding successfully and raise the Capulet family’s reputation. The first three lines of him are all about the managements of the wedding. I can see he puts a lot efforts in managing the wedding. Lord Capulet’s emotion changes also match with his purpose. Before Juliet’s confession, Lord Capulet is angry because his purpose does not succeed. Then he awards the wedding will be going, he achieves his purposes. His emotion also changes follows by this. In total, Lord Capulet’s actions infer me that his purpose is to held the wedding successfully.

Lord Capulet is like many fathers in the literature world. He is dominate, care about family reputation and careless than thinking about his daughter. He is very changeable person in the play. He can humiliate Juliet then praise Juliet in less than minutes. At the end of the scene, he seems so happy that assume everything will be well. Since there is no stage directions in the play, I see these characteristics, emotions change, and are useful guidelines for me to act out the character.

After I conclude those guidelines, I have basic directions for performance. In the final performance...