This semester, through exploring performance in Claire’s class, I learnt various ways of analysing scripts, such as the table read in punk rock scripts, the five “W” situational analysis applied to the dialogue of Romeo and Juliet, and, in the case of Miss Julie, how the economic base and superstructure of the society in which the story takes place affect drama and how drama reflects and reacts to them. I combined these analytical methods with specific examples from class scripts and practised them, achieving a breakthrough. Here I shall take each analytical method as a category and discuss them in turn.

In the first lesson we carried out a table read. I see the table read as an activity lying between script writing and formal performance, aiming through actors’ reading aloud of their roles’ lines to help actors and the creative team better understand the script and prepare for the forthcoming performance, and to feel the emotions of the characters and the development of the story. In class we were divided into several groups and took “punk rock” as the material for the table read. In this process, I found it somewhat difficult to grasp the content of the script and the personality traits of the characters, yet the table read solved this problem well, helping me quickly skim through the script and promptly build up a framework of the plot, and roughly sense the personalities of the characters through their lines. Moreover, during the table read, I noticed details in parentheses which I would not normally pay special attention to, such as the scene design and narrator parts, which made me think about the script not only in terms of content but also about why the writer designed it this way and how these designs assist the expression of the script. I believe the table read as a script research method applies to almost all plays, and it is even indispensable for actors to understand the script. Acting as a bridge from the text to scenic practice, it allows actors to quickly establish the skeleton of the script—the framework and character images—within a few hours, clarify the relationships among characters, and thus lay an important foundation for carrying out subsequent detailed work.Meanwhile , this table read has made me realize the necessity of more thorough preparation for future sessions. I should familiarize myself with the script in advance, mark ambiguous sections, take notes, and contemplate the motivations, psychological underpinnings, and subtext of my character. During the table read itself, it is essential not only to internalize one’s own lines and actions but also to closely observe the performances of fellow actors. In doing so, one should carefully consider how to develop a coherent and convincing performative logic between characters—one that is persuasive both to the performers and the audience, thereby reinforcing the integrity of the role.

Furthermore, the table read left me with a strong impression of its immediate effect on group dynamics. Conducted during the first week of the term, when we were still largely unfamiliar with one another, it rapidly bridged the distance among all actors in the group—our classmates. By assigning roles and predefining character relationships through the script, the exercise laid a vital groundwork for deeper exploration of interpersonal dynamics in subsequent work. It also served as a platform for peer-led learning, allowing more experienced or script-aware performers to guide those less familiar with the material—myself included—into their roles through dialogue and interaction. This process facilitated a quicker, more intuitive understanding of character positioning and substantially enhanced the overall efficiency of script comprehension.

In the following week we explored and interpreted the dialogue of Romeo and Juliet. First we searched for background information about the story, and then we looked up and analysed the five “W” elements in the script—namely when, where, who, why and what—which were the main focus and learning content of this exercise. Through reflecting on these five “W” aspects, we quickly and clearly identified the causes and effects and the setting of the chosen dialogue, greatly improving the efficiency and quality of constructing the script framework. While preparing, our group referred to the original video to get a general sense of the atmosphere of the performance, and after analysing the broader background, grasping the text content, forming a certain framework for the overall performance, understanding the personalities of the characters, the relationships between roles and their feelings, we paid special attention to the punctuation marks appearing in the dialogue, and tried to express different punctuations through tone and intonation, and analysed and felt how they influenced performers’ judgment of rhythm, stress and phrasing during interpretation. At the same time we also learnt that, when analysing Shakespeare or other more classical works, one can first turn the lines into everyday language and use modern, life-related expressions to convey the content of the script, so as to sense its linguistic style and thereby deepen one’s understanding of the script and find one’s own way of interpretation. The five “W” method also has wide applicability, but I think it is more suitable for analysing a selected part of a script, such as a monologue or a short conversation, rather than an entire act containing changes of time and place, many characters and multiple parallel storylines. Nevertheless, we can break a large scene into several smaller scenes and storylines and then apply this method, which may instead help us gain finer control over script details. During the punctuation experiment, we first identified all punctuation marks in the chosen passage, then experimented with giving each mark a corresponding pause, pitch change and stress pattern, including commas, full stops, dashes, question marks, exclamation marks and others. We observed how different readings affected rhythmic emphasis and phrasing, analysed the impact on performers’ decisions about pace, pause length and emotional inflection, and concluded that punctuation acts as a silent score guiding vocal rhythm and conveying subtext

On October 21st in class, we were given the script of Miss Julie and carried out script analysis. We had received the script before class and grasped its general plot and characters. After receiving it, I first read it through to form a broad understanding of its content and plot, and then I researched the economic base and superstructure of the era in which the play is set. First, the social structure: at the end of the nineteenth century Sweden was in a turbulent period of declining aristocracy and rising bourgeoisie and working class, with strict class barriers, and the newly emerged “servant class” began to move upwards, which corresponds to the fact that the play opens on Midsummer harvest festival, when the estate gives servants leave and turns the kitchen into a public dance floor—something unimaginable before the nineteenth century, since the kitchen was the master’s forbidden area. Second, economic transformation: industrialisation and agricultural reform widened the urban–rural gap, and urbanisation brought conflicts between tradition and modernity, countryside and city, a background reflected in the plot when Jean persuades Julie to “flee overnight by train to Switzerland to run a hotel”—without night trains and urban money, this elopement plan would make no sense. Third, gender and family: women’s status was still restricted, but the first wave of the women’s movement was emerging; in the play Julie is both bound by aristocratic identity and oppressed by patriarchy and gender norms, shown mainly in the fact that Julie, curious about sex, actively invites Jean to bed—influenced by new discourses of “free love”—yet immediately afterwards demands “announce marriage and sign papers”—returning to the traditional sole way out of “using marriage to cleanse”. When Jean refuses to marry her, she falls into a closed loop of “being active means falling, being passive means destruction”, and finally can only commit suicide. Fourth, science and ideas: nineteenth‑century neuroscience, such as Charcot’s research on “female hysteria”, influenced the writing of the play, and Julie’s mental breakdown is regarded as the result of multiple factors of heredity, physiology and environment. This is reflected in the script in that Julie repeatedly mentions her mother “burning the manor, raising horses, wearing men’s clothes”—taking her mother as evidence of “inherited madness”; she experiences auditory hallucinations and orders Jean to “control me with hypnotism”, which are typical symptoms of “hysteria” at that time. Next, I analysed the main characters one by one and wrote a character sketch for each, sorting out the web of relationships among them and how their personalities drove and influenced the development of the plot. Writing character sketches as a script research method was especially helpful for my analysis and performance, and it is almost applicable to character analysis in all drama. Character sketches help us understand characters’ personalities and psychology more directly, and they also serve as the basis for our analysis of roles, with the included content acting as evidence when we analyse characters’ actions, allowing more rational analysis; I will take it as an indispensable step in my future script analysis. Finally, through sorting out the script I identified the core conflict of the play, which is also the most important social reality it reflects: the brief cross‑class romance between the aristocratic Miss Julie and the manservant Jean centrally embodies the anxiety over power, gender and identity in the process of the old hierarchical order breaking down, and it is seen as a classic example of naturalistic drama.After training this semester, I have systematically mastered three types of textual analysis methods and arranged them in sequence into a script analysis system that is very helpful for me. First, use the five “W” model to quickly extract the time, space, events and relationships in the script, forming an initial framework and basic positioning; second, handle two kinds of situations—when dealing with classical scripts, use punctuation analysis and translation into everyday language to turn classical or complex lines into operable vocal rhythm and semantic logic, correcting language rhythm; when dealing with modern scripts, similarly turn the characters’ language into one’s own language, feel the tone and rhythm, mark rhythmic stress, and shape the characters through language; third, through writing character sketches clarify the motives behind characters’ actions, connect character logic with actor’s physicalisation, and provide verifiable behavioural basis for later rehearsal. I believe these methods are all generalisable and can be used in the pre‑performance stage of any play or any medium. From next semester, I will turn this process into my working routine, assess its efficiency and scope in practice, and continuously add new analytical methods and practical operations in the learning process, so as to form my own standard pre‑performance procedure.

After training this semester, I have systematically mastered three types of textual analysis methods and arranged them in sequence into a script analysis system that is very helpful for me. First, use the five “W” model to quickly extract the time, space, events and relationships in the script, forming an initial framework and basic positioning; second, handle two kinds of situations—when dealing with classical scripts, use punctuation analysis and translation into everyday language to turn classical or complex lines into operable vocal rhythm and semantic logic, correcting language rhythm; when dealing with modern scripts, similarly turn the characters’ language into one’s own language, feel the tone and rhythm, mark rhythmic stress, and shape the characters through language; third, through writing character sketches clarify the motives behind characters’ actions, connect character logic with actor’s physicalisation, and provide verifiable behavioural basis for later rehearsal. I believe these methods are all generalisable and can be used in the pre‑performance stage of any play or any medium. From next semester, I will turn this process into my working routine, assess its efficiency and scope in practice, and continuously add new analytical methods and practical operations in the learning process, so as to form my own standard pre‑performance procedure.