Visit to the Globe

A few days ago I visited Shakespeare's Globe to watch Romeo and Juliet and while watching this I was able to pick out things, positives and negatives that I can take into consideration while performing The Tempest in a few weeks time.

Watching Romeo and Juliet I was expecting something full of emotion and energy and to me their was hardly anything. This was due to the fact that, tackling a play like Romeo and Juliet you would want to hit each line with some sort of emotion behind it but there was nothing. To me it seemed that they were saying the lines for the sake of it and to keep the story ine going but in my opinion it stopped the storyline because there was no meaning behind what they were saying.

Furthermore, I felt that there were moments where they could project their voices more, especially at key points of the play. When Capulet was told by Tybalt that Romeo was in the same house as them, the actor playing Tybalt was so quiet I believed that he was telling Montague a secret and not something that should've been projected so that audience members who maybe have never read the story could understand. To tie in with this, the physical side of the play wasn't pushed as much as it could have been; with Juliet being much more agressive when in reality her character would be one to be much more subtle with movements and words even.

Last but not least, I've come to take things back which I can use as an advantage to perform well and one factor was voice projection. Throughout the performance I heard people moaning under their breaths saying they couldn't hear and how their corner wasn't getting enough attention so from this I realised that doing a performance in a 3 section seated theatre I need to be polite awareness of the space and to be clear in my voice and actions. Specifically come Brighton Fringe Festival performance day it'll be in front of a huge audience and to address people way at the back will be key to a successful performance too.

In conclusion it was a nice performance to see and to see it go further, the actors would have to commit to whatever they're doing on stage, no holding back. And the energy needs to be much stronger as I saw a few people dropping asleep; if the energy is upped more then the play would definitely attract much more people to go and watch. The ending for me was the best as it was a nice dance sequence to round off the performance. Overall it was a good experience as I learnt many things about the theatre space and what to do more while performing.

 

 

 

As you can see my drawing of Shakespeare's Globe isn't that good but in this picture you can see the stage with three exit doors on the stage. Many levels of seating to give audience members a feel of the space itself and thoughts about what the other audience members are seeing. There's also a place to stand for the audience, back when it was first built the standing was for the people who couldn't afford the price of seating so the ones that were placed down would have a chance to interact with the actors. Usually they would appear drunk and would hurl abuse at the actors; spitting on the floor and stage was common and also urinating on the floor.