Practical Session #1

06/01/15

Today I spent most of my time becoming more familiar with the lines for my classical monologue- I explored more of the meanings behind Emilia's language and thought about her motivations throughout the speech.

I realize that the line beginning with 'say that they slack...' is Emilia proposing a wife's situation to Desdemona and how it could lead to a wife's adultery, and how that may not be such a betrayal rather than a 'fair wrong-doing' in a marriage that is so unfair to begin with. Emilia here defends a woman's adultery if her position in a marriage was full of mistreatment;

• 'pour our treasures into foreign laps' - innuendo for a husband giving women the time with other women that he should only give to his wife.
• 'break out in peevish jealousies' - outrage at wife for showing innocent attention towards others
• 'scant our former having in despite' - punish wife by taking away possessions she once had

After working on making sense of each line, I considered how that would create a change in tone at several parts of the monologue. Here are examples of how it changes and what directions I have given myself to portray this;

• 'if wives do fall; // say that they slack' - this shift in tone is because Emilia is goes from making statement to proposing a situation to Desdemona who she directs this to in Othello in this scene
• 'as husbands have. // What is it that they do' - this shift in tone becomes less stern as she begins to ponder and ask a question
• 'and frailty, as men have? // then let them use us well' - this shift goes from a playful and amused to more exposed emotion as Emilia almost pleas men to treat their wives well - Then I aim to change her tone again to a smug, slightly threatening and arrogant on the line 'else let them know, the ills we do, their ills instruct us so' as the monologue ends

After doing my first rough performance (still with lines in front of me) the feedback I was given was as well as a few points alteration I want to make;

1. Evoke more reaction on the line 'strike us' - maybe its a touchy subject so research character
2. Emilia is a witty, articulate and animated character so add those qualities to the performance
3. Stress the word 'peevish'
4. Gall means bitterness/ being fiesty
5. Change context of 'use them well' - we see that word as a synonym for mistreatment but here it is written to mean literally treat wives well