#on stage though

[coffeefromvoid]

Late night rambling/Acting/Mercutio specific hot? Lukewarm? Take, i dunno I’ve only been acting for like three years

Basically a few weeks ago I came to the realisation that when you are acting it’s useful to know a character’s greatest fear. Of course you need to know more than that to make a character come alive on stage- who they are, their motivations, their personality or the bits of it that shine through in the script and their narrative purpose.

But I also find a characters greatest fear to be important too, especially for heightened emotional moments.

For example my three biggest roles so far,

1. Franz von Moor (in a summarised version of Shiller’s “die Räuber”)

2. Paolo (in a stage adaptation of Michael Ende’s novel “Momo”)

And last and certainly not least,

3. Mercutio (shortend and modified version of the german translation of Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare)

These three roles are very different from each other and all have different fears, which play into their portrayal on stage. None of the fears are out right stated, it’s just my interpretation, to better play the character.

But why is a characters fear important if you aren’t playing a scene where the character is specifically afraid?

Well, to me, my fears personally do affect how i carry myself. Some days more some days less, so having a characters fear in the back of your mind can be useful for when they are doing a monologue for example, or doing an important action, or just making them appear more human

For example, when i was playing Franz, his greatest fear to me, was being alone and having nothing left as he wasn’t the main hair, leading him to doing all of those horrible actions that result in him killing himself after asking god for forgiveness. Not an excuse for his shit behaviour but a helpful guide for his characterisation.

Or Paolo who was just a kid and wanted his parents to spend time with him and who was afraid of change and everything the gray men represent. After the time skip and the kids omission into the new strict school, he becomes hopeless, robotic and depressed. Because his greatest fear came true.

And finally Mercutio who’s, in my opinion, greatest fear is death. This only shines through in the text in two places, the infamous Queen Mab speech and his final monologue before he dies.

The Queen Mab speech starts of whimsical and fun as Mercutio describes Mab and her carriage and so on and so forth, but after a while it turns darker, when he starts talking about the dark dreams that are about war and subsequent, death, that she puts in soldiers heads. This is, to me, the point where the Queen Mab speech turns cynical and basically opposite of what it was at the beginning.

And the second moment where his primal fear of death shows is obviously his death-monologue. Mercutio has, not a facade but a heightened, more dramatic version of his personality he puts on as a mask, to hide this ‘silly’ fear of death. Why would a great man like him fear such a thing? Right? This mask starts to falter when he realises he’s fucking dying, for real. But in never truly drops, as he is still making jokes until his last breath, to try and distract himself of his fate or perhaps convince himself it isn’t happening at all, while clinging on to the person he made himself to be.

I’m not saying that Mercutio making a pun in his death-monologue is out of character, no, it just shows me, that he did not digest what had happened to him before it was too late. If that makes sense.

And of course you cannot forget his very memorable and dramatic anger at both houses in this speech. He doesn’t just blame one person or house for his unexpected demise but he blames both Tybalt and Romeo. This is him expressing this anger he had in him, not just at his death but at everything around him making him feel like he had to put up this heightened image of himself. He is basically speed running the five stages of grief for himself but died before he could get to acceptance.

Mercutio’s fear of death also explains his recklessness to me, he sneaks Romeo and Benvolio into the Capulet ball without even thinking of the consequences, insults the nurse with no after thought and challenges Tybalt to the dual without considering that Romeo might come between them because of his previous yapping about loving the Capulet name like his own, even though no one knew about his marriage to Juliet.

Mercutio basically lives every day like it would be his last but isn’t actually ready to die tomorrow.

Hope this long ass post was worth the read, i’ve been thinking ab Mercutio non stop and its one am rn and i should sleep but i can’t so boom character analysis plus minor acting advice, Also sorry if the grammar is garbage, its as stated one am, and english isn’t my first language.

[moshaeu]

from a breath before the fall

[dcxdpdabbles]

Jason: Hi!

Danny: Good evening

Jason: Oh um, yes, good evening. Do you eat to survive?

Danny: What?

Jason: Ha ha ha! I'm joking! Of course you eat, um I eat too! But why?

Danny: I don't-what are you asking me?

Jason: Gotham is beautiful at night! It's when I eat!

Danny: Are you a-

Dick appearing out of nowhere: Hey there, Jay. You wandered off while I was getting us water. Sorry about him. He's very drunk. I'll take him home to sleep it off.

Danny: *Grabbing Jason's writ* Do you know him?

Jason: Yes, he's my brother. See, that's my family. *Shows lock screen of family* I have many siblings, which means I would be totally fine with lots of kids!

Danny: *Let's go* Oh good. Sorry if he's really that drunk I didn't want him going home with a stranger. No offense

Dick: None taken. I appreciate men like you who keep everyone safe. Come along Jay, let's get you home.

Jason: But-

Dick: You asked me to step in when you were going out of control. Remember?

Jason: Right yes. Ugh Bye.

Danny: Goodbye.

Dick outside of bar: That was terrible. You really do suck at flirting.

Jason: I just froze up! Ugh I hope he doesn't think I'm a idiot.

Danny watching them through the window: That's a vampire pretending to be human. I can smell the undead on him and he was going to lure me to a dark alley if his human servant hadn't stepped in.

Jazz: I was gone for like five minutes Danny, how did you find a creature of the night within that time?

Danny: It's a gift. Thankfully, I'm too smart to be tricked by a vampire.

Jazz: ......you would have followed him into the alley wouldn't you?

Danny: He may be a blood sucker but did you see his muscles? What a way to die.

[egophiliac]

this started as a reply to someone (a million years ago) (I am so sorry) and then very quickly got out of control, as these things do. so...uhhh....here's everyone else at Playful Land!

sorry

[crustyfloor]

My son...my struggler...my sopping wet scruffy kitty cat why are you so lame...whats wrong with you...you're so perfect.

[plutonicbees]

tamquam alter idem. like a second self. magician & dreamer.

[murmurmurl]

I'm back on my bullshit I guess

that redraw I was talking about.. previous versions under the cut

I like how it's less stiff now

[doyoueverjustwomen]

this is just. his thing right

[mecachrome]

BRITISH GP 2024 | Post-Race Landoscar Roundup

[lulu-draws-stuff]

How does that sound?

[zzztlk]

Release is gonna delayed and I don't have a lot to post but I'm 70 pages into the rough draft for my webcomic :)

[zondearts]

au Akiyama sisters, because I can, I will, I just did etc. etc.

[sualne]

Will your crocodad au come back? It has an Iron grip around my heart 😭😭

i've been thinking about maybe forgetting posting it vaguely linearly and throwing parts from different arcs whenever i feel like it instead, since it's that damn flashback that got me stuck. i don't know if ppl will vibe with that tho, since i've posted most of what the timeline is supposed to be like it's probably fine/shouldn't be too confusing.

also the timing of this ask is great, i just drew that, inspired by a mom and her kid i saw on the bus today:

[egophiliac]

What do you like about the Diasomnia boys if I may ask?

I always love hearing about the different reasons people enjoy characters.

I mean, c'mon. he has split custody over Sebek okay

also, Lilia in particular has maybe the best timeskip character development of all time

[chiisana-lion]

oh they are despicable for this after that comic

edit: someone made a much better proper translation here!

[dreadark]

neither of them can escape the meteor shower