Angelo - Measure for Measure

Angelo is deputy to the Duke of Vienna who has mysteriously disappeared leaving Angelo in charge of the town. Angelo has noticed an uprising of sexual activity in Vienna lately such as prostitution and whore houses. To stop this from happening Angelo resurrected an old law stating that any type of fornication is against the law and punishable by death. Claudio is a man who has been sentenced to death under the new law who's highly religious sister, Isabella, has tried to negotiate with Angelo to get him to free her brother. Instead, Angelo propositions her, and states that he will set him free if she sleeps with him. She refuses and before Angelo can act, the Duke, who has been hiding as a prier and watching over Angelo to test his loyalty, comes out of hiding to set everything straight.

Speech

What's this? what's this? is this her fault or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha! Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having wasteground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? O fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou? or what are thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live:
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? what is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook: most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet
With all her double vigor, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Ever till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.

Themes and Rehearsal Process
In this monologue, Angelo is confronting his confusion with this situation he has found himself in, being that he has fallen for Isabella and has the desire for lust for the first time, something Angelo has previously disagreed with enough to make it illegal and punishable by death. I know this because Angelo is constantly asking questions in the soliloquy and lots of answered questions can mean the lack of knowledge and experience in that specific subject and therefore leading to confusion.

'What's this, what's this?... What dost thou, what art thou Angelo... What is't I dream on?'

By understanding that Angelo is feeling confusion, I had to figure out how I was going to portray this in my performance. I started with the first line;

'What's this, What's this...'

This line is the opening of my monologue and therefore has to be instantly engaging and truthful to capture the attention of the audition panel. Firstly, I asked the question out too the audience in the way I would naturally ask a question to someone. This gave me a basis that I could build on. I then thought of Angelo as being panicky and nervous as I know this can be a good way of showing the confusion of a person. I added heavy breathing and a shakiness to Angelo as I stood and used my hands a lot to rustle through my hair and cover my mouth. By acting in this way, I nor my teachers felt this was a truthful portrayal of Angelo at all and decided to scrap the nervous confusion idea and made me think in a very different direction. I researched more carefully into Angelo's personality and the things he has done like sentencing a man too death for a crime he may not have committed. I decided to see Angelo as devious, well thought out and took away any guilt or conscience I portrayed him to have in my first rehearsal. I stood in the centre front of the stage and spoke calm and rationally, pausing and taking my time to ask the questions. This felt a lot more real and I believe that I was feeling confused as to why I'm feeling like this but yet being calm and collected to show how Angelo is someone with a lot of power and responsibility and control. To further enhance my performance I focused on movement. I noticed that my feet have lots of nervous energy and my hands touch my face a lot. As an exercise to get rid of this nervous energy I put my hands behind my back and kept my feet in place and focused on using the language to tell the story. What I felt this do was give me so much more control of my diction, pronunciation and the language devices Shakespeare has used in his writing like metaphor and imagery;

'O cunning enemy, to catch a saint with saints doth bait thy hook...'

To add another layer to my performance, My teachers taught me how to picture myself in the room the character is in during the soliloquy and interact with objects in the room. I decided Angelo is in the privacy of his private quarters where he is free to express himself without judgement and let loose. I pictured a door behind him, a window to the left of him and a wall to the right and the audience in front who  could represent a mirror. I experimented by walking to the window and saying a line, then looking back to where the audience would be, and then face the wall and then turn and look at the door. By saying;

'What do I love her that I desire to hear her speak again and feast upon her eyes?'

to the window, showed Angelo was dreaming and feeling desire and love for Isabella. By saying;

'O fie fie fie, what dost thou, what art thou...'

to the imaginary wall shows how he is having conflict in his mind between trying to stay close minded and disagree with sexual desires or accepting his new emotions of his feelings for this girl and how this has made him angry.

During my rehearsal period of this audition speech, I have been taught, experimented and implemented different techniques and devices that have helped me characterise Angelo, filter out the things that were damaging my performance and hopefully made my interpretation of this Shakespearian speech one that the audition panel will like giving me the highest chances of a successful audition.

Why I have Chosen this Monologue
I have chosen this speech because it caught my eye when reading the play, Measure for Measure. It caught my eye as Angelo is a high class character who has a lot of power and wealth and responsibility and has chosen to use it in a controversial manor. He can be looked at as a man who is quite evil and wants an easy excuse to kill people in order to achieve a clean, sex free town. Or, he can be seen as a man who has not experienced the feeling of lust yet and therefore disagrees with it and is punishing a man who has broken the law as it is his job to do so.
In my opinion, Angelo, although being a high class character too, contrasts really well with Edgar as Edgar is someone who is from a high class background who has renounced his own name, becoming a crazy beggar in order to survive loosing everything he once was. I am playing Edgar as in shock, fearing the worst, scared and thinking of an escape plan, where as Angelo is calm, collective and wanting to understand about his scenario by asking questions and trying to figure out how he can get this girl he likes as evidenced above.
This piece will be used as my back up piece when auditioning for drama schools which are as followed;

• Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• Central School of Speech and Drama
• Guilford School of Acting
• London academy of Music and Dramatic Art
• East 15
• Drama Centre London
• Guildhall School of Music and Drama
• Bristol Old Vic
• Rose Bruford

These schools all require me to perform 1 classical and 1 contemporary and ask for one classical piece to be called upon if necessary. I have chosen Angelo's monologue as my backup monologue as I have performed the character type before and Edgar is a completely new type of character that I have never had the experience of playing which has given me the challenge of learning something new, and been a great learning curb during the rehearsal period. I really believe that both classical monologues are rehearsed to the best possible standard for my level of experience as I have used all of the devices and techniques taught onto me to analyse, research, characterise and understand the text hopefully making my performance of Angelo's monologue; if called upon too do so, one that hits the criteria of the panel.

Angelo being portrayed by other actors - http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03358/measure_for_measur_3358995b.jpg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/9f008dd1866c30c9669da902469e35cf1a870639.jpg