Line learning technique

In this lesson, Dilara has been helping me memorise and go through lines I have had trouble with. The technique she used with me was starting with one line, repeating that twice or thrice and then learning the next one. After that you add the line from before and continue like that. Once you've got through the entire verse you repeat the entire thing a few times to make sure you have learned it properly. I'm going to continue to use this technique as it helped a lot.

Pinterest board link

http://pin.it/Gt12t3t

I created this board on Pinterest with different ideas for set, costume and general inspiration for my character and the play. 

How I will achieve my objective

My action to get what I want

Unit 2: I will pretend to go along with their wishes but then leave the city to avoid it.

Unit 3: I will run away into the woods with Lysander to be with him without the risk of my mother or Demetrius.

Unit 4: I will forget about my wish to be with Helena and give that up to be with Lysander in the woods.

Unit 13: I will use sweet words to convince him of what I want. He wouldn't want to hurt me or do anything I don't want so he will leave me alone for the night.

Unit 21: I will try and be sweet to him so he will remember our friendship. If that doesn't work I will run away so he cannot catch me and take me home. 

What is my obstacle?

What is my obstacle from me getting to my objective?

Unit 2: My mother and Theseus wishing me to marry Demetrius rather than my true love Lysander. They also threatened to kill me or send me to a nunnery if I didn't obey their wishes.

Unit 3: My mother's wishes and her not letting me leave the house unless with Demetrius.

Unit 4: The fact that I cannot stay in the city or else my life is in danger as I will not marry who my mother intends. Helena cannot come with us.

Unit 13: Lysander's desires. He won't let me sleep unless it is at least next to him. However he gives in eventually.

Unit 21: Demetrius' determination to be with me, he is also faster and stronger than me so he could stop me if he wished.

What I want?

What do I want? (My objective)

Unit 2: I want to escape this place. I don't want to be here, being forced into a marriage I don't want. I just want to be with Lysander, he truly cares for me. He doesn't care about any money or my mother's love for him. He just wants me. I want to be at home planning my wedding with him, with my mother's support.

Unit 3: I want my mother to leave me and Lysander alone. The only way I can do that is to run away. I want to leave this city with Lysander.

Unit 4: I want to stay with Helena as that is the person I always turn to but I also want to leave or else I may be killed for refusing to marry Demetrius. 

Unit 13: I want to be able to rest, I am exhausted. I want to wait until later, perhaps after marriage to sleep with Lysander.

Unit 15: I want to find Lysander and figure out why he left me. I want to find out if he is hurt or worse, dead.

Unit 21: I want Demetrius to leave me alone and never bother me or Lysander again. I never want to see him again. 

What happened to me before the scene?

What has just happened to me before the scene?

Unit 2: My mother caught me talking to Lysander out of my window and begun to shout at him and I about the 'stupidity' of our relationship. She dragged me down the road, still lecturing me, to Demetrius' house and took him with us to Thesus' house. During my struggle not to go, my dress was ripped which of course she blamed on me. I ended up willingly walking there instead of being dragged yet she still kept my arm clamped in her hand.

Unit 3: I was told I would have to marry Demetrius. If I didn't I would have to either be sent to a nunnery or be killed. 

Unit 4: I let out my anger towards the adults and Demetrius trying to force my heart. I planned to run away with Lysander in the woods.

Unit 13: Lysander and I had been travelling for hours on foot, through humid conditions but it has turned a comfortable warm temperature for the night. I was so tired that I tripped over almost every vine or branch in my way. Lysander was practically holding me up. I was exhausted and needed to sleep. 

Unit 15: I had been asleep for a few hours, perfectly comfortable. Lysander had left where he had slept with Helena but I was unaware of this. In my sleep, when he leaves I feel a sense of emptiness and wake up looking for him but he is not there.

Unit 21: I had been searching the woods for Lysander but Demetrius found me instead. I was shocked to see him so far into the woods, he knew I'd be here and heard me shouting. He kept making snide comments about Lysander and I tried to avoid him, walking fast. But he continued to catch up to me, he wanted me to go home without Lysander and I wouldn't do that.

What is my relationship to the people around me?

What is my relationship to the people around me?

Unit 2: Thesus- My mother's aristocrat friend, he controls most of the people in town and grants permission for official marriages, even arranged ones. He throws elaborate parties and banquets, close to my mother.

Egeus- My mother who is looking to marry me off to Demetrius and gain power. She is close to Theseus and believes by dragging me here that she can force me to stop loving Lysander.

Lysander- My true love. We are separated by everybody else in the room as they all support my marriage to Demetrius.

Demetrius- My arranged fiancé. He only loves me for my money and power, he used to love my best friend.

Hippolyta- Egeus' fiancé. I do not know her well, she is not very involved in the situation. 

Unit 3: Lysander - The man I love.

Unit 4: Helena- my best friend. Since childhood we have been best friends however she is now angered by my engagement to the man she loves. 

Unit 13: Lysander- the man I love. He is making sexual advances during the scene but I convince him to sleep elsewhere 

Unit 15: I'm on my own when I wake up shouting for Lysander

Unit 21: Puck and Oberon watch over, I have no relationship to them that I am aware of however they know and watch me and my friends.

Demetrius- My arranged fiancé. He is insulting Lysander, threatening him. I lose my temper with him more than usual and run off 

What surrounds me?

What surrounds me?

Unit 2: The carpet is a deep red which compliments the gold detailing all over the room. There's a fireplace in the corner of the room which obviously hasn't been used for a while since the house is heated by the natural warmth of summer. On the coffee table there is a pile of wedding magazines, all different copies with pretty girls in white on the cover with various hearts and flowers. 

Unit 3&4: The armchair which Lysander sits down in is a large soft one, it is more like a throne. Very suited to Theseus. A large flat screen TV takes up the wall space on the other side of the room. Through the window, there are a few lights from the houses nearby lighting the street along with the moon. The windowsill has a thin layer of dust with a few fingerprints on it. 

Unit 13&15: There are vines and branches blanketing the forest floor making it hard to walk without tripping in the dark. On a log nearby there are a few cigarette buds and below at the base, a few crushed beer cans with an empty packet of crisps. There is a tree with a small patch of moss and flowers at the bottom, perfect to sleep on. A few metres away, another trunk similar.

Unit 21: There are a collection of different sized logs in the middle of a clearing with leaves covering the floor. 

Where am I?

Where am I?

Unit 2,3&4: I am at Theseus' large house, mostly used for his elaborate parties. It is a few streets away from my house, one of the largest and prettiest houses in the town. I am specifically in his living room.

Unit 13&14: I am in the middle of the woods outside the city. There are vines, twigs and urban garbage everywhere. The vines and branches are easy to get lost in or trip on. There are a few pretty flower beds and grassy spots at the bottom of trees that are perfect to sleep under. The moon peeks through the branches and lights it up perfectly.

Unit 21: I am further into the woods. There is still urban and natural debris scattered around. There are a few logs in the centre of a small clearing covered in grass and occasional patches of flowers and weeds.

What time is it?

What time is it?

Unit 2: Around 10 at night in the middle of summer. It is dark outside aside from the light of the moon. The night has a slight chill but once the characters get inside Thesus' home it is well heated. 

Unit 3 & 4: A little later than 10 at night. It has become slightly colder and the sky darker, a few stars have appeared. 

Unit 13: 8 at night, Hermia and Lysander have been walking since 6 am so they settle down. Dark sky with many stars and a bright moon. Since it is the middle of summer, the night is warm but not uncomfortable. 

Unit 15: Extremely early the next morning, around 1 am. It is pitch black and the stars have dimmed in light slightly, the woods are dark and slightly colder. 

Unit 21: 11 am, it is sunny through the branches that block most of the light to the wood. It is warm. 

Who am I? Hermia

My name is Hermia, my mother is Egeus - she is an incredibly rich aristocrat in London. Me, being her daughter, has to then ensure that I'm always abiding by her rules and looking proper for reputation. I'm petite, well I say that instead of saying a midget which is what all of my friends call me. I have long blonde hair that is always kept tidy and prettily styled as my mother likes it. My warm brown eyes are one of the things I'm most happy with, they differ me from my mother and her cold hard ones. I am currently being forced into a marriage with Demetrius, a rich and noble gentleman -which my mother has plucked from a bunch of money-grabbing twats -for me to be attached to for an alliance. I don't love him and never will. My heart belongs to Lysander. Ah lysander... He is just as worthy as Demetrius, except he has no string of rumours attached and his love for me is true. Our love is pure, not formed by my mother for her own needs. Of course mother is incredibly against the idea of my happiness if it has no financial or title gain. At least I have my best friend Helena who helps me through all this drama, we've known each other since we were children. She has always been there for me but recently even our friendship is being ruined. She's in love with Demetrius, my fiancé. They had a fling a month or two ago. He broke her heart once my mother approached him with her proposal of our marriage. It seems everything has just been ruined since this engagement. I have to get out.

Why Shakespeare chose to set it in the woods

I believe that Shakespeare chose to set the majority of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in the woods as, in the time that he was writing the forest would have been a place of the unknown and feared by many. They believed that the woods were placed where you could get attacked, murdered, or come face to face with creatures like fairies or witches. Hence why Titania, Oberon and their fairies live there. Setting it in the woods made Shakespeare able to make all the unusual things happen there as most people in that time were afraid of what went on in the woods and wouldn't enter - especially not noble women like Helena and Hermia.