Reflection

The grade I get as the result of my drama performance is not as fulfilling as what I have expected. The drama performance did not work out as well as our daily practices and rehearsals, which might be caused by our heightened tension and anxiety during the final performance, and our group's disorganization for not being very well-prepared. Since we lack of group members, we tend to be disorganized in arranging the characters, and memorizing the play lines. We especially have difficulties in memorizing the lines, particularly for the main characters to memorize (Romeo and Juliet), since the script lines is unceasingly too long for us to memorize. In order to make it easier to memorize, we should have cut more unnecessary parts of the script lines, that mainly contained in the love scenes, where the conversation between Romeo and Juliet were mostly unnecessary and unceasingly long, which makes it harder for the main characters to learn their lines.

We did not quite utilize the given times in class affectively, since we mostly do the rehearsals, rather than using the given times to learn our lines. Such a disorganization have resulted in a not very satisfying overall drama performance, especially since our group lack of teamwork, which is one of the most important part that affect our performance. As for my own individual performance, cannot be said as satisfying enough, because I lack of practice on my own learning, besides the group work. In order to improve our drama performance, we should have to be more organized and well-planned, and have more practices in our own individual learning. 

Drama performance

The final drama performance was not satisfying enough. Our group members did not really learn our lines well, and were not well-prepared for the performance. This might be caused by the drama lines is unceasingly long for us to memorize. We should have cut more unnecessary parts of the dialogue line to make it easier to learn. In order to improve our drama performance, we should have more practice in memorizing and learning the lines.

Last drama rehearsal

Today is the last drama rehearsal for our group, where we are given the last chance to practice our drama play. We tried to put our best effort in practicing this drama rehearsal, since this is the last chance for us to practice the play altogether. The rehearsal went pretty well, our group already know the flow of the drama, and doing pretty well, when we rehearsed the whole drama scene in front of Mrs. Sam. But we still need to put a lot of effort in memorizing our lines for the drama, in order to improve the performance.

Play the whole drama scene

First of all, we practiced act 4 & 5 for the rehearsal. Then we showed to Mrs. Sam the whole drama scene continuously from the very beginning of the act, to the end. The rehearsal was far from satisfactory, since it crosses the time boundary limit of 15 minutes, and our group members were not prepared in memorizing the lines. With only 1 more English lesson left, we are going to practice our best for the play, and memorizing the lines.

10 May

We did another drama rehearsal. This time, we did a rehearsal for act 3 to act 5, where I played as the nurse, who told Romeo about Juliet's death. So far, our group have not make any necessary improvement for the play. We have not memorizing the lines fluently, and still lack of expression. There are still a lot of things to to fix/practice for the drama, and for the actions.

Play Rehearsal, Act 1 & 2

Today we're rehearsing act 1 & act 2 play, where I'm playing as the nurse's character, the supporting character, and as the narrator. In act 1, Romeo meets Juliet for the first time and fell in love with each other. While in act 2, Romeo sneaked into Capulet's orchard, to meet Juliet. The rehearsal was not quite satisfying, since my group members have not memorize most of the lines, and lack of expression. but with more practice and rehearsal, we aim for a better play.

Fixing the final script

Last night, on 4 May, I fixed the final script for the last time. I just include some narration lines, to describe the different parts of the scenes, and to comprehend the action parts, just to make the script more understandable and detailed. Finally, the script get printed and distributed for each members of the group. Before started to practice the script, we organized and compiled the musics for the play first.

Learning the lines

After reducing the lines in the script, I started to practice my character's lines for the play. The characters I'm going to play for the drama includes the nurse, narrator, and lady Capulet. Then, besides practicing the lines, I also started to organize the musics for the performance, and compile it altogether with Bibil and Bryna. We choose the right music's mood according to every different tragedies, to dramatize the play.

May 3

We did a rehearsal for the script altogether, this time we did it properly, although we did not time it. In order to improve the play, we should have more recent practice, and more expressive dialogues, to make the play seems more natural and expressive. Meanwhile, the script needed to be fixed, and cut some unnecessary parts, so the play would meet the time's expectation of 12 minutes. I'm cutting most of the lines in act  2 and act 5, especially the balcony part where Romeo was talking with Juliet, since it has way too long and unnecessary parts in the act 2.

Reading the script altogether

We're doing our first drama rehearsal altogether, and read the whole script altogether, according to our own characters. Our group members are limited, which only 5 of us. So each of us must play for at least 2 or 3 characters for the play. For myself, I'm playing the characters of the nurse, lady capulet, and the prince. Our first play rehearsal did not work very smooth, with the total timed play of 17 minutes, since we have not read the whole script appropriately. In order to reduce the time, into 15 minutes at least, we need a whole lot of another drama practice, so that the drama would have work better. I am trying to practice my characters' lines of the nurse, prince, and the lady capulet, so that I would have speak more fluently for the real play. While for the narrator part, I wouldn't need to memorize the lines, since I can just read the lines from the paper.

Timing the play

After completing our task, and cutting the unnecessary parts of the script, we started to do a rehearsal. We did a timing our script/dialogue for each act, to make sure that the play does not consume much for more than 15 minutes. According the plan, each act of the dialogue should only spend 3 minutes as the maximum, since there are only 5 acts. The part I am doing for the script, which is act 4, is being timed as 2 and a half minute, which meets the requirement. Apparently, the whole dialogue does not meet the 15 minutes timing expectation. Instead the whole dialogue was being recorded the timing as 20 minutes. Since the first play rehearsal did not meet timing's expectation, our group fix the dialogue again, and cut all the unnecessary parts from the dialogue lines.

27 April

I cut most of the unnecessary scenes in the Act 4, and just using scene 1 and scene 3, since these scenes are included as the most important parts in act 4. Act 4 was started by the part when Juliet had a fight with Paris at a church, for Juliet confessed to Friar Lawrence that she loved Romeo. After Paris leaved the church, Juliet started to threaten the friar, to kill herself with the dagger. Then the friar stopped her from doing a suicide, instead, he gives an advice to drink a potion that make her "dead" in 24 hours, so that Juliet can avoid marrying with Paris on Thursday, and run away with Romeo. While in the scene 3, I just mentioned the part when Juliet drank the potion, and pretending to be "dead".

Script

Our group is doing the Romeo & Juliet drama in the modern SWA school version. The setting is set at SWA, while the characters are specifically made in the school version. Each of us is doing our script for every act, while for me, I am doing the act 4 script. We focus our drama script more into the love scenes, since the Romeo & juliet story emphasizes more to the love parts. In act 4, I emphasize the necessary parts when Juliet drinks the poison, and the wedding ceremony. I am going to play a role as the narrator and nurse, for the drama play. The purpose of creating this drama in a modern version, is to create a sense a humor for the audience, and that it would be more understandable since the drama is being played in such a modern version, so that the concept of the story line would be easier to understand by the audience.