My Scene

The scene I am doing is Act 5 scene 1 Athens, the palace of Thesues, from Midsummer’s night’s dream by William Shakespeare. The play was written Mid- 1590. I play the character Quince; he is one of the 6 craftsmen that put on a play for Thesues and Hippolyta at their wedding. They must come to their palace to perform the play.  In the play within the play he recites the Prologue. He struggles at first to fit the lines into the meter and make them rhyme. You can see the punctuation in the script where there are random full stops to show where he stutters. The scene has been cut down so i only say the prologue.

I play Quince as a very nervous but brave person, he knows his play is rubbish but really wants people to like it. When I annoce the prologue I annonce it very poorly. I tried to imagine it as if iIwas supposed to say something amazing and when I said it in my head it was, but when said out loud it wasnt at all, and as soon as I did say it and know it was bad I try and  keep a straight face so they will still want to watch my play.

In the play Midsummers nights dream, there are 4 Oberon Fairies, Hawthorn, Cowslip, Fleece, and Speck. IT was not unusual for Shakespeare to write about Mythsand magic, because back in shakespearian time people actually believed in fairys, magic and Witches.

My Monlogue

My monologue is Cleopatra from the play Antony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote this at the end of 1606 or the beginning of 1607, as the dates weren’t dated very well back then, it was after he finished Macbeth and before he wrote Coriolanus. The play is a dramatization of a tragic and celebrated love affair of Antony and Cleopatra. Basically antony and  Octuvious Caesar, grand-nephew and adopted son of murdered Julius Caesar, are left to rule the world.  Antony is married to Fluvia, and lives in Egypt with his mistress Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. And Caesar is angry by this and calls Antony back home to Rome, which Antony does but only after his wife has died. When in Rome Antony and Caesar try to make amends when Antony marries Caesars sister, Octovia. Antony soon deserts and goes back to Egypt to be with Cleopatra again. Caesar gets mad and vows to attack Egypt and gain power back of Antony and Cleopatra. Soon only death is coming for Antony and soon asks Eros to kill him; he declines so Antony falls on his sword and kills himself. Cleopatra is in Massive grief over Antony’s death and is determined to never fall under Caesars power, so she commits suicide as well by Allowing a poisonous asp, a snake, to bit her. And this also means she believed she would be with Antony again.   


The monologue itself is where Cleopatra was saying goodbye before she killed herself. The reason I chose this monologue, was because I wanted to betray a strong confident woman. when I learnt that Shakespeare wrote the play Antony and Cleopatra I knew I wanted something from this. I searched all the Cleopatra monologues I could find and the suicide one stuck out for me because you could tell she was being brave and strong just by reading the words. Thats how I chose to do this monologue.


 My research for this was by reading the play which is hard to understand, and I was also helped by my brother. He made me watch the episode of the TV series Rome, when Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide. While watching this my brother explained things and told me exactly what was happening. He also gave me other random facts during the era of 50bc which helped me a lot to first understand what happened and why and also made me understand everything in my monologue and answered some lines from the piece that I questioned.

My Performance

When I first started my piece I thought I was doing well but 3 lines in I forgot what my line. I was allowed to start again. When I started again I was glad because I started so much better. I remebered all my lines this time and I got through it all while showing the correct emiotion when needed as she has a lot of emotion going through her during her speech, such as; sadness, anger, hurt, confusion and confidence. Halfway through my monologue I was supposed to kiss Cleopatra's maid and best friend Iris. I was by myself performing so I decided to blow a kiss instead. I hoped that this would get across the emotion to the audience and as if I was saying goodbye to everybody. I also wanted it to show that she did love everybody and she loved being Queen however she loved Antony more and this was something she had to do.
If I got the chance to perform it again I would. This was the first time I showed this monologue however I used this for 3 University auditions and it got better in time and at my 3rd audition it was the best I ever performed it.

The Globe.

The Globe theatre was Shakespeare’s theatre, and that was built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s playing company, called the lord Chamberlains men, then when king james became king the company was then called The kings men. The globe was burned down by accident by the cannon in 1613, it was rebuilt in 1614 and was closed in 1642. The Globe in London now is the third Globe that has been built. 

 They were only seats around the edge of the globe and they cost 2p, which is about £5 now. Most people though had to stand and watch the shows. It was outside so if they got rained on it was tough luck, the were called groundlings and they would of paid around 1p for entry. Audiences were expected  to use their imaginations for different locations and backgrounds. In most of shakespeare’s plays you will find that they can be very roanchy and would consist of sex and violence, this was to keep audiences appealed, and to keep them coming to watch the plays. The Auidences were also be hard to please as they would always be heckling and at the to row of seats many prostitutes would be doing their jobs up there. Theatre was appealing to every class of people, and the Lords would sit just above and behind the stage. Now they would seem like the worst seats, but back then it was the best seats in the house because then everyone could see them.

People back then were very religious and believed in heaven and hell. The globe was in a roundish shape,

this picture is the roof of the stage, and its painted so it looks like heaven. As you can see there’s angels, and it looked like the sky with stars, the sun and moon with the gods and goddesses. The people that were made to stand to watch the play could be known as hell. The stage was in the middle because it wasn’t high but it was high enough to stop people from climbing on the stage. They portrayed on what a life could be like and also can be surprising similar to the lives they were living at the time. So people believe that this is why the Globe it called the globe because it can portray earth in many aspects.

 In the Globe the reason they didn’t have a roof was because they would use the sun as a light to light the stage, so performances were always during the day and mostly during the summer so they could use the sun for lighting as there was no electricity. They would use candles as well sometimes. The Globe Theatre is still used today; they only use it for performances during the summer considering there is no roof. They still show Shakespeare’s plays most of the time; however they have new plays by new writers showing as well. The word Renaissance means rebirth in French, during that time, a lot of people were making new discoveries, inventing little things and wanted to learn more about the world. This is why it was called Renaissance theatre; Shakespeare himself wanted to learn new things and wanted to explore new ideas and new writers using the globe to show their work. So this is why they show new performances as well as the classic Shakespeare plays.

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth 1,  is remembered as one of England's most influential monarchs, when Elizabeth finally ascended the throne in 1558 at just 25, England was a country in turmoil, it was torn apart by bitter religious conflict and mounting political tension. Gender aside, countrymen had little confidence that Elizabeth could provide the solid foundation and leadership England so desperately needed. She would quickly prove otherwise. By gaining the support of her male constituents and levering the Tudor concept of firm rule, Elizabeth I was triumphant in preventing the outbreak of civil and religious war within the boundaries of England. In shakespeares plays there are many strong female roles, even though there were no female actors. Maybe Shakespeare created the strong female roles to represent the queen on just how strong and good of a queen she is.

Renaissance Theatre

Renaissance theatre era!

This was an era in histroy around 1500-mid1600. This covers the time where the tudors and the stuarts were in power. The word renaissance means rebirth in french.


 If they believed someone, a woman, to be a witch they would kill them without a second thought. People passed down superstitions, no one would go out at night because people thought witches and fairys would come out at night to play tricks on people, just like midsummers nights eve as they called it. This is proably why Shakespeare called has a play called midsummers nights dream, because thats what people dreamed and believed that happened.  There were many diseases in them days. Diseases would be blamed on Witches. one of the biggest one would be the plague. Theatres were closed as no one would go in case they caught the Plague. So many shows left London to go do tours in the countryside were it wouldn’t be as easily caught.
          People were very very religious as well. Nearly everyone would believe in god, heaven and hell. In the chain of being, women were at the bottom of the list. If they believed someone, a woman, to be a witch they would kill them without a second thought.

Women were nothing, and were only used for sex and just being there. Which was  strange really, because even though king  James 1was ruling when this play was written and he was defiantly more relaxed about stuff in general and theatre, most of Shakespeare’s work  like Midsummer’s night dream the play my scene is from, was written while Queen Elizabeth 1 was ruling England.                                                                                                                                             Queen Elizabeth had a lot of rules, she was very up herself, because everything had to be brought to her. Queen Elizabeth loved the theatre but If she wanted to see a play she would not go to the theatre, the actors would have to go to her.

My name is Louisa Culley and for my college work I must create a blog of my Classical theatre work im doing. I must create a Presentation on my Classiacal Monologue and scene. I have to write about when the pieces are from and what happened during that time and more.