How to Brew Love! - The Shakespearian Method

Okay, so the best part of the play is the flower that Puck uses to cause trouble with. The Love-in-Idleness. Shakespeare uses a lot of botanical (flowers) references in his works especially this play. Most people believe the flower to be a Viola, however in this scene it is a Pansy, a pun in a sense for the homoerotic nature of the movie.
Here's how to create Cupid's Love Juice (Love-in-Idleness Flower), so, enjoy, though don't try this at home!

This scene is from Were The World Mine (2008).

Another great thing about this piece is that is shows of physical the fairies are, which is important for the scene because it shows a way of making the characters much more dimensional and real.

My Scene Piece

The scene I was given to work on was Act IV Scene I from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I will be acting the part of Nick Bottom.


A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most famous and well-known plays and is just as popular in modern times as it was when he first played it at The Theatre in London.

 It has inspired lots of modern remakes, including the 2008 short film - Were The World Mine.

Were The World Mine - Based on William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream



The play is centred on several themes such as Love, and Feminism.

One of the themes of the play, Feminism, was due to the political climate at the time.

The play brought up the issue of having different voices of authority such as patriarchal law with Egeus, and the monarchy (Theseus).



In the play, Theseus doesn't punish the lovers for their behaviour, and rule-breaking running around the forest. When he forgave the four young people, Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius, he made a separation between patriarchal law (Egeus) and the royal law (Theseus), and effectively created two different voices of authority as is what was happening in the political world concerning the next in line to the English throne after Henry VIII's death.

During Elizabeth I's reign, the monarchs were seen as having two bodies: The body natural, and the body mystical. On one hand, her father Willed her to be his successor and therefore it was patriarchal law. In addition, she was the daughter of the king and therefore she was a natural born heir to the throne. Both of these points were to ensure that the crown passed on to her, instead of the church approved Mary Stuart.

How does this relate to my monologue?

So how does all of this seemingly random information help me with my monologue?

The answer is simple, it just does!!

To really portray the character I need to understand how his life would have been during those times.
He would have been a commoner, and likely from a poor family.
He was a servant to a Nobleman, and would therefore have to obey all orders or be punished.
He would be religious and superstitious and believe in God, Heaven and Hell.
Altogether, to successfully protray the character, I would need to ensure that I followed the morals and rules that he would have been bound to. Once I undertstood certain issues that would have been important at the time, like inter-social relations between commoners and nobles, I found it easier to understand the character and get a feel for what it would have been like to actually be him.

He had to be polite and obey the orders of his Master, but he also jumped at the opportunity to laugh about Proteus. He got away with a lot because a lot of what he said was underhanded and out of earshot etc.

I wouldn't be able to fully apply myself to the role, if I didn't know all the background information that would have been a major part of the character.

Mary Queen of Scots - by Nostradamus

Another prophecy Michel de Nostradame made has been linked with Mary Stuart, The Catholic Queen of Scotland.

It is translated from its original French to say:

One day she will be acknowledged as a queen
The very next day she will pray
the reckoning is a right and a good one
Above all humble, never was there one so proud.

This has been associated with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, who many believed to be the rightful heir to the English throne. Her execution led to the Spanish Armada, triggered by Pope Sixtus V's authority to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I for regicide.


As we all know, that didn't happen, because the Spanish Armada was completely oblitterated by storm and the English Navy.

Many would hear these prophecies and believe them to be divine word from God and would listen in rapt attention. But as has been shown, even with forwarnings from the Supernatural, no one was safe from fate. This was another concept the people of the world were convinced of.

A Seer Who Saw

Almost everyone has heard the name Nostradamus before, usually before they begin ranting about The End of the World and 2012... However the man, Michele de Nostradame, was quite an important figure throughout Europe during the Renaissance period.
Though he was French, he was very well known and had in fact, some very powerful people who valued his talents as an apothercaire and as a Seer.

During this time, the people were highly suspicious and often held Prophets in high esteem. Nostradamus made thousands of prophecies throughout his career and the one that skyrocketed him to fame was the prediction of King Henri II of France's death during a joust.

But Monsieur Nostradame also made several prophecies that are directly involved in the English History, regarding the monarchy.

One prophecy is translated as following:

The natural daughter, not low at all, is set so very high
This late comeback will please the apologists
The secret will be much debated
Both in the filling, and during all of her tenure.

Most scholars believe that this is a prophecy regarding the accession of Queen Elizabeth I to the English throne and how many would dispute her claim to the throne.

Elizabeth, who was a Protestant, was deemed illegitimate by the Catholic Church, they wanted Mary Stuart, the devout Catholic Queen of Scotland, as the English Queen, so to bring England back to Catholicism.

Renaissance Theatre

Theatre

Until mid-16^th Century, most plays were performed outside London

Craftsmen / Tradespeople put on traditional plays and on village greens

As it grew in size and importance, more people went to the theatre

The first theatre built in London was called The Theatre

Other theatres included The Rose 1587, and The Swan 1595, The Blackfriars, and The Globe

The Globe Theatre

Shakespeare’s Works

At least two of his plays have been lost, 38 survive

Two of the surviving plays (King Henry VIII and Two Gentlemen of Verona) were supposedly co-written with John Fletcher

The other 36 plays are divided into comedies, tragedies, and histories

Law, Punishment & Education

Elizabethan Law

1)      Steal 11p or less = Prison, Steal 12p or more = DEATH!

2)      Must wear woolly hats on Sundays

3)      Cloaks were banned so that the Queens courtiers could reach their swords quicker should she be attacks

4)      Only Noblemen or those with higher status could wear purple or clothes embroidered with silver or gold

Punishments

Beheading, Hanging

Burning, Boiled Alive

Whipping (Flogging)

Branding, Pillory (standing)

Stocks (sitting), Ducking stool (only used for woman – witch trials)

Limbs cut off, Drunkard’s Cloak (wearing a barrel)

Education

Not many children went to school.

Those that did were the sons of wealthy working families who could afford it.

School days were longer and they worked hard on languages.

The schools were very strict – got Birched (caned) for punishment.

Two types of school –

= Petty School à Taught to read

= Grammar School à Taught Latin

Religion & Beliefs

                 Religion

                The people were a lot more religious than they are in modern times

               Almost everyone still believed in God, Heaven and Hell

               England was a Protestant country

                - It had broken away from Catholicism

                - Reformation, which began with attacks on corruption in the Catholic Church

             Elizabethan Beliefs

             The Chain of Being (scala naturae – literally ladder/ stair-way of nature)

-          A Christian belief that detailed a strict hierarchy of all matter and life.

          

        

   

                Myths and Magic

-          Fairies, magic, witches, spells and prophesies all formed part of their view of life

-          Folklore and superstition were often as important as Religion

-          They believed fairies and other magical beings came out at night to play mischief and they caused people to become insane

-          Astrology was a lot more important than it is today

Key Facts

Important events in the Renaissance Period

1542 – Mary Queen of Scots lays claim to the English throne

1544 – Henry VIII invades France

1585 – England and Spain go to war

1587 – Elizabeth I executes Mary Queen of Scots

1588 – Spanish Armada

1590s – First Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson performances. More theatres open.

1593 – Plague forces theatres to close

1603 – Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by James I (Mary Queen of Scots son)

1605 – Gunpowder Plot

Prolific People   

-       William Shakespeare

-       Ben Jonson

-       Christopher Marlowe

-       James Burbage (built the first theatre in London in 1576)

-     Richard Burbage (James Burbage’s son, an actor)

           Life during the Renaissance

           Life was cruel and hard.

           The poor went hungry.

           Medical remedies were more like torture.

           Woman often died in childbirth.

The Renaissance

The following information is all relevant to the times that my monologue was first written. This will include many beliefs and key facts that were of high importance at the time.

           The Renaissance era began somewhere around the 1500s and went into the mid-1600s.

            The English Renaissance took place during the transition between The Tudors and The Stuarts.

            --> Tudors = King Henry VIII

--> Stuarts- Elizabeth I, Mary (Stuart) Queen of Scots, James I

Elizabeth I

Mary Stuart - Mary Queen of Scots

James I (IV in Scotland)

Renaissance is the French word for ‘Rebirth’.

It symbolises the rebirth of interest in classical period ideas.

It was an important period in time for people learned in science and art.

My Monologue

         We had to find a monologue from the Classical era of theatre - between Classical Greek, to The Restoration. 

The monologue I chose is from Two Gentlemen of Verona, which was written by Shakespeare somewhere around 1590-1591. I decided to use Launce's Monologue from the play because it was a comedic role and suited me more than a simple Romeo role.

 The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a play that focusses on the relationship between friendship and love. Two friends fall in love with the same woman, even though one has already left a lover behind awaiting his return. The play centres on the foolishness between the two friends who are in love with the same woman and the lengths to which they go to win her favour. The two main characters, Proteus and Valentine, both try to woo Silvia, and are often mocked by their servants, Speed and Launce along the way. Proteus betrays Valentine by telling Silvia’s father the plans of their escaping away to elope and thus Valentine is exiled by the Duke.

 The main concept is the idea that friendship ought to come before a woman, or more recently regarded as ‘Bro’s before hoes’.

 My monologue is about Launce, the servant of Proteus and his dog, Crab. He re-enacts a short scene where he shows how his family all reacted to a recent parting and how his dog didn’t react at all. He uses shoes, sticks and hats to represent different family members and often confuses himself. It is a comedic piece and is written in prose, which was the mark of a commoner in Shakespeare’s works.

With the play being one of Shakespeare’s earliest works and possibly his very first play, it is not as successful, and many would argue that it was more a stepping stone for his later works. It lacked his craftsmanship that he gained later in his career and has often been described as his weakest play.