Classical Monologue

For this unit, we had to choose a classical monologue to memorize and perform, meaning we had to research a classical monologue that referred to either Greeks or Shakespeare. Since I was not familiar with any classical monologues I had to do some research and came across a woman's monologue in one of Shakespeare's plays Alls Well Ends Well for a woman named Helena. As I read through the monologue I realized that she is deeply in love with a man and I also recognized her physical movements as she says I kneel before you. Before I could proceed to perform it, I first needed to research as to whom she was talking to and also her setting as this determines her actions as well. I found out that Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with her son, Count Bertram, who has been sent to the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. So, in this scene she is in the Countess's Palace, asking the Countess for her blessing to marry her son. I went through the monologue and wrote down stanza by stanza what type of tone I would use, and also what would I be doing physically. For the formative performance, I started off kneeling down to her, and afterwards got up and started pacing around as I was talking to her, then towards the end I came back to my knees and tried to look even more scrawny, since I wanted to depict that if she does not marry him she would die, because she even mentions that towards the end of her monologue and so I thought it felt appropriate to look like that. My feedback and what I also realized afterwards was that I was too much in a state of begging to her rather than in this genuine state telling her I love her son and that I want to marry him and even Mrs. Morris agreed, she said whenever I talk about him I should be serious, and at the same time be passionate yet delicate towards her, since Helena knows that this man is out of her league and so she has to be respectful. Also what was a challenge for me was memorizing the Shakespearean language which of course we are all not used to since we don't talk like that, however I think with studying Shakespeare in English it gave me an advantage and was quite comfortable and familiar with the language, the language is quite poetic and has that feeling of intense love, I feel when a person expresses themselves through Shakespearean language it sounds more pure and honest and so I adjusted my tone of voice and articulation to suit the character. By overcoming these obstacles I first practiced quite a bit to set the tone and mood of the setting, instead of pacing around I fixated my eye at one point and made that point The Countess and as if I was talking to her so I stood still when I got back, to emphasize my love for her son rather than starting on my knees I fell to my knees as I thought this would be more effective and would see her reaction as being surprised and also that Helena has the courage to tell her this. The class also told me that my facial expressions were very good when I didn't even realize I was exaggerating them that much, but I think it's because I was so endured into my character.