Final Paper

Angela Davis
English 327: Shakespeare: Tragedies
Dr. Gleason
December 8, 2008


Film Adaptation Analysis

I was very fortunate to be apart of the play group, “All The Queen’s Woman,” which performed Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-know plays. Many people are first introduced to it in high school, which is when I first was introduced to it. Although that is the first time people are required to read and study the play is in high school, many people know about it before then, which was the case for me. It is referenced in television, movies, and books, which all make it out to be an interesting play. Then high school comes along and it ruins the fantasy of what the play is about, at least the way I was taught it did. My teacher approached Romeo and Juliet like this: read what is assigned, and then discuss what Shakespeare wanted us to get from that scene, and so on until we finished the play, finally watch the movie. Which was the oldest version she could find and nobody could understand what the actors were saying. From that moment on I lost appreciation for all Shakespeare’s plays, I basically washed my hands of them. When I found out I would have to take a class in college on Shakespeare’s plays I have to admit I was pretty bummed out, but I saw the professor’s name and realized the plays would be taught differently from what I was used to. I now have a better appreciation for the plays, some I still do not understand completely, but at least I now have a different way to teach the plays to my students from they way I was taught. One of the things that I learned from this class is, how do we know what Shakespeare meant when, one he is dead, and two there is not a lot of information out there about him. This is what I reminded myself while coming up with ideas designing Romeo and Juliet. A few times I caught myself thinking, “What prop did Shakespeare want them to use?” then I would remember, “This is my interpretation of the play, so it can be whatever I want.”
The role that I played in my group was the production and set designer. I think that I had one of the easiest jobs in my group because I did not have to memorize lines. Having only girls in my group presented some challenges. As a group we decided to make the characters all girls, some parts would just be manlier than others, mostly just Romeo’s part. We decided to turn the Friar into a Nun and Capulet was played as Lady Capulet. I needed to decide what I wanted the characters to wear, how their hair should be, and what props I wanted them to have. The only thing that I really took from Martin was the idea of Juliet wearing wings, and Romeo wearing some kind of shield during the party and balcony scene. The only thing that did not work out was that Romeo did not have a shield and instead a sword. The reason for this was because; Kathryn did not feel comfortable switching a shield from arm to arm while she and Emily danced. The other thing that I took from Martin was the idea of Juliet wearing white to show her “innocence.” As a group we had talked about Juliet wearing a different dress during the death scene to show her innocence was gone now that she was married, but while performing we realized we did not have time for that. Another thing that was talked about in the beginning was Montague wearing dark colors and Capulet’s wearing light colors, but almost all the scenes that we had both sides in were cut out so that was another plan that did not work out. Sarah was also supposed to have costume changes through out the play, but found it took to long to change shirts between scenes, so I just told her to wear a black shirt and pants and add different accessories depending on which part she would be playing. From the begging we also decided that everyone, besides Juliet should wear black pants, and not jeans, which helped make the play look a little more formal and put together. Other than those decisions it was left up to each person to decide on what to wear. I decided to wear all black since I would mostly be moving props around the stage, and that way I would not stick out.
As far as hair goes that was also left up to each person to decide. The only thing that I asked was if a person was playing a male part to have their hair pulled back away from their face. I thought it would be best for Juliet to keep her hair down. Sarah decided to wear her hair in a low bun which worked out perfectly for her parts. Along with hair we discussed makeup. Nobody in our group wanted to wear a lot of makeup so again I left that up to them to decide what to wear and how much to wear. I think that everyone made good decisions; no one stuck out more than another person.
Finally, are the props that we decided to use. I knew that we were going to need a balcony, a bed, and a desk as far as the bigger props go. I was a little nervous about coming up with how to get all of these things, but once I saw what was available to us my mind started to work. For the balcony it was suggested by Charlie to use the IV holders and a sheet. I did think about the movie and the way it looked. That was my favorite scene in the movie because it over looked to pool, I enjoyed how Martin portrayed that. Unfortunately, I could not bring a pool to the stage, but I could make it look like it was outside as much as possible. For accomplishing that task Sarah (the art major) volunteered to spray paint “stones” onto a sheet I bought to make it look like a building. Then we decided to use plants to make it look like an outside scene. The plants also doubled as Romeo’s “hiding spot.” To make Emily look taller she stood on a block, which also doubled as a bed, and for the tomb. The blocks were all that we had available as far as a bed, so we made do. We put the blocks together and put a sheet on top to make the bed, and just switched the blanket from the bedroom scene to the tomb scene. That ended up working out very well. Finally, instead of a desk we used a table for the scene with Juliet and the Nun. It would have been nice to have a desk so they could have moved around a little bit, but I think that the scene turned out better than if we would have had a desk. Now on to the smaller props, we needed more than I thought in the first place. Emily played a big role in this part, because she had a lot of what we needed. She had the nun costume for Sarah, a dagger for her, and a mask for Lady Capulet for the party scene. Kathryn provided Juliet’s wings and her own sword. Each of us brought other little things that we needed, like the pillows and blankets, flowers, etc. The only things that we borrowed from Charlie were a vial, and the bigger props. Also last minute we realized that we needed another sword so we borrowed that from another play. Lastly, we used music for the dancing/party scene and for in between scenes.
I tried to refer to Luhrmann’s movie and Martin’s design decisions as much as possible while making choices for the play, but I found myself and my group members wanting to make it more unique to us and what we had to work with. It is difficult to pull exact evidence from the movie, when I think a lot of what we came up with was our own.
Play Performance Comparative Analysis
Like I said before I tried to do as much of the decision making on my own without referring to the movie. Some things that I learned while doing the production and set design is that it was definitely more difficult than I thought it would be. Although, I do not think I could memorize lines as well as some of my peers, I sometimes found myself wishing that I could be an actor instead. I now realize that people like Martin deserve a lot of props for what they do, and it is not just the director who makes all of the decision for a movie. I enjoyed the bright colors that Martin used in the film, the bright reds and blues. I also liked the costumes that the actors wore; although they were cheesy they were creative. My favorite costumes were on Mercutio they were very over the top, I wish I could have brought this into our group, but unfortunately Mercutio was cut out of the play. Also it probably would not have worked as far as the costume changes went. In the end I learned that Martin did a lot of work for Romeo and Juliet and without her Luhrmann would not have had a movie.
My approach had to be different than Martin’s because I did not have all of the same materials that she had available to her. I also needed to come up with props that would be easy to move and accessible to the others in my group. Although Martin was very creative in her decision making, I think that I had to be more creative for a few different reasons; time, budget, and things that were available. I also think that I toned things down a lot compared to Martin. I did not use the same bright costumes as she chose to use, also I did not have my group members do their hair the same. Another approach that was different was the movie was modern and our play was meant to be done like Shakespeare’s original plays. This changed the props that we used, swords and daggers instead of guns, and we tried to make our costumes not as modern as Martin’s were. Finally, because people did not feel comfortable being over the top in their performances, I did not feel like costumes should be over the top. The best example I can think of for this is again, Mercutio. He was the most over the top in the movie and so were his clothes. It seemed like the clothes the characters wore in the movie reflected how the character acted. I can now say the same for the characters in my play group.
Finally, I did take some interpretations from Martin but I also had my own and had to work with the other people in my group interpretations. I think the main similarity would be how she dresses Juliet and how I dressed Juliet. Form the beginning I wanted Emily to wear white throughout the play, like Juliet in Luhrmann’s film. I also really wanted Emily to wear the angel wings for the party/balcony scene. I felt like it was important to portray Juliet’s innocence since that is one thing we discussed a lot about in class. Angels are innocent and pure, and that is what Juliet is meant to be also. The other thing that I wanted was for the nurse to be similar to the movie; unfortunately this did not happen because we did not have the costume available to us. Other than that my interpretations differed from Martins. I think this had a lot to do with what the people in my group who were actually going to be performing wanted; I was as flexible as I could be because I wanted to make things as easy as possible for them. Kathryn was not as dramatic as Romeo was in the movie, and I personally liked Emily’s performance as Juliet better than Claire Danes. The only other thing that I would have liked to do as Martin and Luhrmann did would to be open the play as news broadcast, but again unfortunately time was not on our side. Another reason we did not do this is because it was mentioned until we already had everything the way we wanted it.
In the end I think that our play turned out better than we all thought it would. I learned a lot from this experience, and I am happy I was given the opportunity to experience something different than I am used to. I learned that Martin had a harder role in the movie than I thought, and it is not an easy job. I am glad I gave this a chance because in the beginning I was against it, but once I got going I realized what a good idea it was.


















Works Cited

Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 2000.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. 1996. DVD. 20th Century Fox, 2002.

I am very glad that our performances are over, but at the same time I am sad. I am happy because now I am not worrying about it anymore and the outcome of it, and I am sad because I really enjoyed working with the people in my group. I am so happy that we all got along and agreed on everything. I was very surprised how smoothly it went. I know there were a few parts that had little mishaps but all in all we did a great job for not having a chance to run through it on the stage. I also thought that all of the other groups did a wonderful job. In the end I think it turned out very well and it was a good experience.

Lady Macbeth

Evil, controlling, and manipulative, those are all words that I would use to describe Lady Macbeth and those are words the entire class used also. I disagree with the people in class who say that Lady Macbeth is not these things. I think that if it was not for her Macbeth would not kill anybody. She is like a puppeteer controlling every move he makes. She knows what pushes his buttons and uses that. I am sure this is not the first case of this. Women do this all the time because they know that they can. Obviously woman now a days do it differently than in those days, because now woman show more skin and are more sexual than back then. I personally think that’s where the stereotypes come from and if a woman is doing these things, than she can’t complain about the bad wrap woman get. I think that it is neat that Shakespeare somewhat puts the woman in charge here but he could have done it to make her look better. But what a big shock a woman looks bad in Shakespeare’s play.

I find it interesting that we are constantly analyzing the people in Shakespeare plays without knowing a lot about him. As it was brought up in class it is hard to tell if Shakespeare’s plays reflect his life in any way because we simply just don’t know his background. I found myself wondering if maybe something happened with Shakespeare and his mother that their really aren’t any mother figures in his plays. With Hamlet being the exception and correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Hamlet have some mommy issues? Maybe if Lear had a wife throughout the play he could identify true love and realize that Cordellia is the only daughter that truly cares for him. Also if he had a wife the problem of his pride getting of the best of him wouldn’t have been their, and than he could have fixed things with his daughters.

The other thing that I would like to touch on is in Ran I liked how the breaking of the sticks foreshadowed what was to come. The son breaks the sticks to show that things can be broken and his father’s choice wasn’t necessarily the best. I also found myself getting a little upset in the end. I was hoping the son and father would get to reconcile, but of course anything related to Shakespeare is not going to have the sappy,happy ending.

Let me first say that this blog is going to suck because I missed class Monday so I don't have notes to go off of and Wednesday we did not have class. For whatever reason I have been having a hard time getting into these plays so it has been hard for me to make connections to what we talk about in class to the play we are discussing. I read the play and it goes in one ear and out the other. I watch the movie but I tend to fall asleep while watching. I really enjoy discussing the plays and learning things about that period of time but like I said I just can't enjoy these plays. I also love hearing everyone's opinions of the plays, which makes the plays interesting for me. I guess if you can suggest anything for me to enjoy these plays better I would greatly appreciate it. I am very sorry for such a crappy blog.

I really like that we are starting to see ideas that we talked about in Non-West in Shakespeare, because it makes things more clear for me. If I don’t quite get it in one class I tend to understand it in the next class. When we discussed Orientalism in Non-West I thought I understood it, but than we discussed it in this class I realized I didn’t get the full concept of it. Now I get that it is people’s ideas from the West constructing the people from the East. Although these ideas really aren’t always true, they are stereotypes and myths. I am not sure what I understood it as before, but I now know it wasn’t the right idea. Now I will be able to connect it to my readings better, without struggling to pull things ideas that end up being wrong in the end.

Blog Paper

At the beginning of the semester I was at the “text-self” stage of the reading development stages, with out a doubt, and I am unsure that I have gotten past that stage. It is very hard for me to compare Shakespeare’s plays to other things that I have read, and things that are happening in the world today, since I have trouble understanding Shakespeare. Being an Education major I am constantly writing reflections about myself, my work, and things I have to read for the class. In these reflections I am answering questions that are very “I-centered.” The questions that are often asked of the students are ones that require answers with the phrases, “I think,” “I believe,” “I feel,” etc. Also I see a lot of reflections similar to the ones in my educations classes in my religion classes, requiring the students to answer questions much like the questions in the “text-self” stage of the reading development stages; “Did I like this text,” “Does this text remind me of an experience from my life,” and “Is this text good or bad?” Also without even realizing I am doing it, I ask these questions as I read books for fun. I think this is something everybody does; it is hard to read a book and not reflect on what you have just read. Therefore, I think that no matter how advanced someone is they are always going to have a little bit of the “text-self” stage in their analysis of whatever they are reading.
As I said before I don’t think I have moved out of the “text-self” stage of the reading development stages. When I looked over my blog post, I noticed that every single one of my post has more than one sentence that says, “I think,” “I realized,” “I believe,” and statements similar to those that begin with “I ….” Instead of bringing in other text I have read or things that are happening in politics and the world, I often bring in things that were said in class by other students. Then I reflect on what they have said. I think the reason that I don’t bring in other text is because, it is hard for me to relate Shakespeare to modern times. I know that it can be done because we often discuss it in class, but it is hard for me to make a connection. I am not sure why this is, but I have somewhat of an idea; it is easier for me to relate things that can understand to other text I have read. Sometimes I find it very hard to understand Shakespeare’s work and ideas, and because of that I tend to approach it more by deciding if I liked it, if it reminds me of my life, or is it good or bad.
One example of this is from my very first blog post dated August 28, 2008, in this post I was talking about my thoughts of Shakespeare in Love before I had seen it. “I thought that it was going to be a movie with a bunch of snotty high class English people, and I thought they were going to portray William Shakespeare as and old English man,” this is a perfect quote to show that I was very “I –centered.” Obviously I now know that I was just going along with many of the myths about Shakespeare, but it shows how naive I am.
Another quote that shows that I am at stage one is a quote from my blog dated September 19, 2008, it says “I am glad that we are taking this approach towards it because it makes it that much more interesting.” This quote shows that I am focusing on what I like. Instead of approaching the reading this way I could have instead related the text to another class that made whatever we were reading interesting.
Finally, a quote from my latest blog, in this blog I am talking about Aaron in the Titus movie, “When I watched the same scene that we watched in class at home, I really didn’t feel sorry for him at all,” this quote shows that I really haven’t made much progress. It again is showing me focusing on my thoughts and what I liked. I could have related to the movie and treatment of Aaron to how people are being treated by our government if they are different, instead I came at it with an “I-centered” approach.
I think that I need to start remembering these things when I sit down to do my blog. I don’t think that I necessarily need to stop saying what I think, or what I like, but add the other two stages into my reflections. I agree with what people were saying in Non-West, that instead of working up to the “text-world” stage, we should work on incorporating each stage. I can do this by taking my time when I do the blog. When I sit done and do a blog I have a lot running through my head of what I want to say, which leads me to end up forgetting to say some things. What I can do is write everything down before hand to make it easier to get all my thoughts out.
The other point that I want to make is that sometimes the first stage is the only stage you need to reflect on a text, it just depends on what type of text. Some books I think it is sufficient enough just to state whether you like it or not, and in most cases if you don’t enjoy something it is hard to relate it to things that you have enjoyed.
I think these blog assignments are one of the best things I have done, and I hope that it becomes more common in other classes. I also think that I will have something similar in my classrooms when I become a teacher. I really enjoy doing the blogs every week because, not only does it help me make sense of the book we are reading and what we have discussed in class, but it also helps me wrap up all my thoughts for that week’s topics.

Aaron, not such a "bad guy?"

After class on Wednesday, I was thinking about a lot of things we talked about in class. (It’s sometimes a long drive from Stritch to Oak Creek, giving me time to reflect.) I always like coming to class and hearing everyone’s ideas about what we have just read/watched, and best of all I love how people’s opinions vary so much, mostly on the ideas of Aaron. When I watched the same scene that we watched in class at home, I really didn’t feel sorry for him at all. The entire time I watched it I was thinking, “Good, he is getting what he deserves,” but than in class my mind changed a little bit and I was having a hard time deciding whether or not I sympathized with Aaron. As I watched the scene in class, having Mike and Jay’s opinions in my head, I started thinking that Taymor wanted us to somewhat feel bad for him. Like many of my classmates said, Aaron is the only character we see that is true to his self and is “real.” I started feeling sorry that all these men were around him ganging up on him, I was thinking about the point Jenny made in class, we don’t know what was done to him it could have been just as bad or worse. So I thought that everything that he did might and could be justified, if we saw the other side of the story, and since we never will, I think I’ll agree with Mike, you, and Jay and stick to being on Aaron’s side.

I can already tell that reading Titus is going to be interesting. I am glad that we are taking this approach towards it because it makes it that much more interesting. The only thing is though I was having problems in class trying to decide if it is a parody, if it is pastiche, or campy. I was on the campy side of the room and I agreed with the pick that Jenny shared (Titus killing his son right off the bat) was somewhat campy. I thought that because, when I read it, even though it is a serious part, I still laughed. It just seemed so random and over the top that’s the only reaction I could have. But I also think that it could be parody, because I think William Shakespeare would do something like to make fun of the other revenge tragedies. I also think it could be pastiche because maybe he really enjoys the revenge tragedies and wants to “celebrate” them. I think right now it’s to hard for me to tell, and maybe it will be this way through the entire play. I do hope though that I get a sense what Shakespeare was really trying to do. (I doubt it though.)

While working on the acting Thursday in class, I realized how much work has to go into the acting and performance. Before Thursday I had never heard of blocking before, but it makes sense. While watching the other groups go I saw how big of a difference it makes when a person is standing in a certain spot or what kind of facial expression they are making. If a person had their back to me while they were talking it was harder for me to pay attention, and if a person wasn’t making any facial expressions it was hard to know what they were feeling. Now that I am aware of this I will definitely keep it in mind if I end up acting or helping my group members with their acting because, I know the difference it makes.

There is a scene in the Romeo and Juliet movie that I kept thinking about in class when we were discussing the film adaptation of Leonardo and Claire. The scene, with Leonardo, showed all three things we talked about, facial expression, body language, and voice, very well. The scene was when Romeo finds out Juliet is dead. (I think in the book it is act 5 scene 1.) Balthasar tells Romeo that Juliet is dead and first his facial expression is the look of shock, and then his face scrunches up and he begins to cry. As he begins to cry he falls to his knees in a very dramatic way. Finally, when he first finds this news out his voice begins quietly and when he falls to the ground he faces the sky and screams his lines in anger. This scene is a great example of film adaptation for me. (At least after I got past the fact that Leonardo looked like his character in the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.)

Shakespeare In Love

I have to start by saying that I completely misjudged what type of movie Shakespeare In Love was going to be. I thought that it was going to be a movie with a bunch of snotty high class English people, and I thought they were going to portray William Shakespeare as and old English man. I guess my ideas go along with the myths about Shakespeare. I was very glad with the choices they made for the character roles. It made the movie much more enjoyable and completely knocked my thoughts of William Shakespeare right out of the window. I now realize that he was a “normal” person with “normal” problems. I believe this will help to make reading his works much interesting for me.