Unit 24 - Auditions for actors

I have carried out some research into my Shakespeare audition piece. I have chosen to perform this piece because I feel like it contrasts very well to my other audition piece ‘Stepping Out’. Also, this piece is quite out of my comfort zone and not like anything that I have tried before. Therefore, performing this piece will give me a challenge but as I begin to work on it, I hope to improve.

Below is a copy of the speech which I will be learning and performing. The speech is from the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which was written by William Shakespeare and can be found in act 4, scene 3. Here is a link to a website which gives a summarised synopsis of the story:
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/romeo-and-juliet/?gclid=CjwKCAiA8vPUBRAyEiwA8F1oDDB5nxpZLX4zuxYhHIajBTyDS0X6xPUKxPqyeY8wH4gulpbmBjoozxoCWg8QAvD_BwE
I struggle quite a lot with understanding Shakespearian language and therefore I have carried out some research into finding a modern-day translation. This will help me to gain a better understanding of the monologue and will help me with characterisation.

Original version (Shakespearian language):

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,

That almost freezes up the heat of life:

I'll call them back again to comfort me:

Nurse! What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.

Come, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?

Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?

No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

[Laying down her dagger]

What if it be a poison, which the friar

Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,

Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,

Because he married me before to Romeo?

I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,

For he hath still been tried a holy man.

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!

Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night,

Together with the terror of the place,.

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,

Where, for these many hundred years, the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are packed:

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,

At some hours in the night spirits resort;.

Alack, alack, is it not like that I,

So early waking, what with loathsome smells,

And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:.

O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,

Environed with all these hideous fears?

And madly play with my forefather's joints?

And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?

And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,

As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?

O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost

Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body

Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!

Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

Modern day version:

Good-bye. Only God knows when we’ll meet again. There is a slight cold fear cutting through my veins. It almost freezes the heat of life. I’ll call them back here to comfort me. Nurse!—Oh, what good would she do here?

In my desperate situation, I have to act alone.

Alright, here’s the vial. What if this mixture doesn’t work at all? Will I be married tomorrow morning? No, no, this knife will stop it. Lie down right there.

(she lays down the knife) What if the Friar mixed the potion to kill me? Is he worried that he will be disgraced if I marry Paris after he married me to Romeo? I’m afraid that it’s poison. And yet, it shouldn’t be poison because he is a trustworthy holy man. What if, when I am put in the tomb, I wake up before Romeo comes to save me? That’s a frightening idea. Won’t I suffocate in the tomb? There’s no healthy air to breathe in there. Will I die of suffocation before Romeo comes? Or if I live, I’ll be surrounded by death and darkness. It will be terrible. There will be bones hundreds of years old in that tomb, my ancestors' bones. Tybalt’s body will be in there, freshly entombed, and his corpse will be rotting. They say that during the night the spirits are in tombs. Oh no, oh no. I’ll wake up and smell awful odors. I’ll hear screams that would drive people crazy.

A translation of the whole script can be found here:

http://nfs.sparknotes.com/romeojuliet/