For my scene we decided to focus on the foreshadowing and how Friar Lawrence tried to control fate, AI used the scenes where Friar Lawrence tries to talk to Romeo and Juliet about Romeo being banished. My scene shows how Romeo tries to control what happens next in the relationship, it shows more when he talks to Juliet than when he talks to Romeo because when he talks to Juliet he states a clearly thought out plan for what is going to happen next, according to him. Friar Lawrence is the main reason for the downfall of the relationship between Romeo and Juliet because he tried to control fate instead of letting fate control itself.
In my performance I am trying to portray that Friar Lawrence isn’t as holy of a person that everyone may see him as, he is a controlling and mysterious figure who has ways of basically hypnotizing people into doing what he believes is right. This relates to my scenes because in both of the scenes Friar Lawrence always seems to be taking a judgmental, orderly standpoint. He manipulates a very weak and fragile Juliet into doing something as desperate as the sin she threatened, being death. In Act 3, Scene 3, Romeo is manipulated into maintaining a calm although he does not want that, he is almost manipulated into finding a whole new life which was not an option for him because Verona was all he knew. In Act 4, Scene 1, Friar Lawrence manipulates Juliet into taking a mysterious potion that he claims will make her stop breathing but not kill her, Juliet agress to take this because there is no other option and Friar Lawrence knows this and so does Juliet which is why she is so easily manipulated. It also relates to my scenes because as holy as he is, earlier in the play he is seen making potions with mysterious herbs, the play did not go into through detail about what these herbs were but what concerns me is what the potions were and what their purposes were. Friar Lawrence like very much to be in control of destiny and fate and is in many ways obssessed with having everything perfect. Earlier in the play, he married Romeo and Juliet, he mentioned that maybe since he was marrying them that the families would have to get used to eachother and they feud between the two families would end and Verona would be a peaceful and happy place, but as we saw in the play, this did not happen and it only made the feud hotter. Later in the play, the feud took the lives of Mercutio of the Montague Family and Tybalt of the Capulet Family at the hands of none other than Romeo himself.
Friar Lawrence is a controlling factor in the relationship of Romeo and Juliet and in many ways causes their relationship to fall apart and what causes their deaths. He tries to build a sense of calm into a buzzing, nervous and desperate Romeo by attempting to manipulate him into finding a new home and subsequently a new bride when he says “Here from Verona art thou banished, the world is broad and wide for you Romeo”. This is the first sign of manipulation from Friar Lawrence to Romeo and really the only one worth mentioning, although small and subtle it is there. It becomes more noticeable when he is talking to Juliet about Romeo’s banishment and this is really where Friar Lawrence tries to bend the branches of fate into his favor. He says to Juliet after she threatens suicide “Hold, daughter! I do spy a kind of hope, which craves as desperate an execution as that is desperate which we would prevent. If rather than to marry County Paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, then is it likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame, that cop’st with Death himself to scape from it; and if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.”. This is basically telling Juliet that he has an idea and that since you have the guts to kill yourself you’ll have the guts to do this and if you do I’ll help you. This is when Juliet takes the potion that will fake her death and was supposed to reunite her with Romeo, and did, not in life, but in death.
In these two scenes, Friar Lawrence's body language conveys what a dominant figure he is in the lives of both Romeo and Juliet. He is almost always looming over them or above them or standing in front of them in most parts of the performance, this is because that in order to convey the controlling personality it is important to show him as a figure of superiority which in a technicality he is but in this sense it makes it even more luminescent because he is manipulating two mentally unstable people, people who are threatening death because of love. Friar Lawrence is almost always in a calm state but it is a different calm then most people are used to seeing, it is a mysterious calm, like he had this plan in his head all along. It is important to show this because he is supposed to be the calm figure but he is almost always in front of them on stage and above them because both Romeo and Juliet are always both on their knees begging for help and counsel because they are both desperate to see eac hother and Friar Lawrence is taking advantage of this. His body language is dominant because in the performance I showed him as a character who always stood upright and his head held high, a rather confident, sure of himself type of character. Friar Lawrence is dominant because he is the go-to character for help and he knows that so he takes advantage of his power sometimes it seems because he knows he can give Romeo, Juliet and anyone else who may come to him for advice which makes him so sure of himself and confident in his abilities.
Friar Lawrence's aggressive tone allows us to understand that he is a domineering character and that he gets what he wants. He is often seen and heard talking down to Romeo and Juliet because he is like a father figure to both of them because they know they can always rely on him to give them help, or "counsel" as they refer to is in the play. Friar Lawrence was known to have married the couple which made him the go-to figure for counseling in the relationship which in some ways is good but in some ways bad, it proved to be bad for this relationship because it comepletely led to the downfall of the alrady downward spiraling relationship. He talks down to Romeo as he tells him what is basically the cold, hard truth, that he has been banished and that there isn't a whole lot he can do about it. He talks down to Juliet when he basically mocks her when he threatens to kill herself, he says that since you can threaten such a sin than you can save your relationship with Romeo by carrying out something just as desperate as taking her own life. Friar Lawrence's aggressive tone of voice adds onto his dominant personality and I feel like those two points are the main reason why Romeo and Juliet gave into what he suggested, not because they really wanted too but because he was so good at persuading them that it was the right thing to do and that it would get them what they wantd out of the relationship and would end the sorrows and the struggles and they would do anything to end the struggle of having to live in their relationship in secret. They also listened because as said before, they were desperate, they had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn too. Friar Lawrence was the only person in Verona who they could trust enough to not tell their families of their love which is why he took advantage of them and why he got so aggressive.
In my analysis, I talked about how Friar Lawrence was controlling, how his body language was domineering and how his tone of voice was very aggressive. These points all go hand in hand because they all have something to do with eachother. Being controlling normally means that you have domineering body language to intimidate the person you are talking to so you can get what you want and the same aggressive tone of voice so you could get the same thing done. I feel like my scenes did a good job of showing how Friar Lawrence was a very dominant character not only in the all around performance but in the lives of Romeo and Juliet as the play progresses, you see him more and more which shows his importance to the relationship. In conclusion, Friar Lawrence is the main reason for the downfall of the relationship between Romeo and Juliet because he tried to control fate instead of letting fate control itself.
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