Juliet is a Psychopath (Or: How I got the Part)

This is my audition for Romeo & Juliet.
For one of the titular roles. Juliet.
No, really.
This is my headshot:

(I am willing to do nude)

Well here it is:
My audition for Romeo & Juliet (Juliet though).
Juliet is a beast. I mean it is her play, no doubt about it.
So where does the play start?
With a meek little ingenue sighing about love and shit.
Juliet? No. It's Romeo. (we'll get to him)

Scene One. Enter ME

Juliet is in another part of Verona. Away from the crying and the bitching.
Nurse calls me down and I'm like: "Who calls?" I know it is the Nurse, but she does not speak to me like that.
It's my mother.
She excuses the Nurse and then remembers she has no idea who I am.
Where am I coming from? Elsewhere, I had shit to do, probably curing the black plague or something. It's a slow Tuesday...no one died today.
So they tell me they want me to marry some pansy named Paris.
I say, "I'll look to like if looking liking move." I'm not gonna fall in love with someone I just met! (foreshadowing!)
(DESIGN: This whole scene I picture Juliet getting stripped down to nothing, basically naked in front of the audience, then we see her as either just a girl or a woman grown.
Then, they infantilize her by wrapping her in a party dress, swaddling her in fabric.)

Scene Next. Hashtag Party

So I have just been stuffed into this party dress, I head immediately downstairs and lo!
PRO-TIP:
(The first interaction between R&J happens in silence. Screw the whole sonnet, which is beautiful poetry, blah-blah, whatever. The first time they meet is in silence. How do I know this? Juliet and the rest are in MASKS. There is nothing so magical about a person in a mask that enchants a person at distance to start asking about them. Okay back to the action.)
A boy holding a torch!
(DESIGN: read up on torch carriers. It is the dumbest position...EVER. In most stories everyone gleans over this fact. Everyone has a torch guy. Prior to modern light there was someone who carried it wherever you went after dark. THAT is what Romeo volunteers for. If you do not highlight that he is being a little bitch, then the whole next scene is silly.)
Nope. A prince. Paris. A man's man. Paul Rudd in a space suit.

This really happened.
So we dance. And Romeo is mouth breathing on the side of the party staring at me.
It is my party! Everyone is here for me and I am killing it.
Then, the mouth breathing Romeo appears and steals a kiss.
First kiss, first impressions, first love.
Oh and this:

My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! 

He is the son of my mortal enemy. So that sucks.

Scene After! The Balcony

PRO-TIP:
(There is not a single mention of a balcony in the entire play. Balconies weren't invented yet as mentioned in this fabulous article: The Balcony Scene in Romeo & Juliet is a Lie.)
Just going to leave this here:

Any other part belonging to a man.

(Hint: It's a penis)
So I am talking up how much I love Romeo and then someone whispers in the bushes.
Creepy. There are not words...nope. There is! RAPE!
I threaten to call the guards and lo, it is the boy I was just gushing about.
Awkward sauce.
So I get a proposal out of the deal and set up a time to do the deed.

Scene The Everything:

So we get the engagement.
I rush to Romeo whilst at prayer.
We get married and he kills my cousin Tybalt after the reception.
I curse him, curse Tybalt, curse myself.
Refuse Paris.
Go to the Friar, get the potion, drink the potion, fake death.
Piss off parents.
So far so good.

Scene Last: The Awful:

And then we wake up to the worst scene of ever.
I wake up in my wedding clothes.
To the Friar begging me to leave.
Surrounded by the bodies of my loved ones: Tybalt, Paris, and Romeo.
Romeo is dead in my arms.
(DESIGN: I see Romeo clutching Juliet to his chest. So she wakes in his arms. She is enclosed in the arms of her husband as the Friar tries to pry her out. Nest of death and contagion and all that)
I not only attempt to drink the poison from the cup, but his lips, and then fall on his dagger.
And I don't do it half-assed.
Oh no.
I die instantly so (DESIGN) stab between the ribs, through a lung, into the heart, and wrench it back out.
Insta-death.

And everyone else cries over me for a while and erects a golden statue in my honor.
Awesome

Character Building

Juliet is not whiny.
Too often have I seen Juliet played as a petulant child.
She does not cry without cause. She is willful and stubborn and just a little bit crazy.
You heard me. CRAZY.
The seed of R&J is not love, it is not conflict, it is not war. It is passion. Obsession.
For those who don't know the difference:
Love is what the Dalai Lama practices every day:

(You beautiful bastard)

Obsession is what you practice when you skulk underneath your ex-girlfriend's window:

(It is meant to be)

The subtleties may be lost on some, but they are there.
Romeo gets a bad rap for being fickle and changeable.

• He loves Rosaline completely
• He will never leave her
• He leaves her for Juliet
• The play happens

Juliet is just as changeable, just as bat shit as Romeo.

When she hears Romeo killed Tybalt she reacts like a person: 

Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?

Paraphrase: How could he? Why? He is so beautiful on and on and on.
Then the Nurse damns him. Effectively agreeing with Juliet.
How does Juliet respond?

Blistered be thy tongue for such a wish, he was not born to shame.

A big middle finger to the Nurse who is crying over her "best friend" (Tybalt) in the whole play!
When asked, Juliet says she has to side with her husband.
That is pretty strong loyalty for one who has known him for twelve hours.
How long?
You heard me.

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, when I, thy three hours wife have mangled it? (emphasis not-Shakespeare's) 

They've known one another for a night and a day. Half a day.
(MATH: It was dark when the party starts. Assuming they meet right after the party and talk all night, it is nine when Romeo meets the Nurse , ten when she gets the tackled stair, eleven she talks with Juliet, noon when they are married, and three now...they've known one another all of twelve hours. Fifteen if I feel generous)

So Juliet sneaks Romeo into her private chambers and they manage to consummate this marriage.
Yeah, the same day that her new-found husband murders her cousin, Juliet has sex with him in the house they grew up in....classy.
So Romeo tries to leave and we get the lark scene.
Which, classically goes like this:

Actually that looks pretty good.
Except for the fact that Romeo is banished and will die in Verona starting TODAY.
So does Juliet help him with his clothes? Does she bid him adieu till they can meet up outside the city proper?
No. No, she quibbles about which bird is singing.
It is fucking DAY!
(DESIGN: make it day. Make it so clearly day that it physically hurts to do the lark scene. Because it physically hurts to do the lark scene. Trust me. Juliet is crazy. She is denying it is day and the harder she has to work the crazier she looks. Romeo will die if he stays. Let him die. He is committing suicide by staying).
And he does. He says he will die because he cannot bear to go (Pro-tip: watch the 1968 film, you will know why he stays).
What does Juliet do next? Asks him to promptly leave.
At this point Romeo wants to kill Juliet.

So her parents show up and tell her to marry someone else.
What does she do when prompted to remarry?
Go to the Friar and threaten to kill herself.
Now, I know all the cool kids are doing it (glances at Romeo), but for real though:
She pulls a knife on the Friar:

 Behold, twixt my extremes and me, this bloody knife shall play the umpire

 That is a real thing, she threatens him that if he cannot come up with a plan she will kill herself in front of him.
Boom.
Crazy pants.
In the tomb she finds out that her husband is dead and she attempts to kill herself no less than three times.
Three.
Think about the mental resolve to off yourself.

1. Try the cup...it's empty
2. Try the lips...no poison
3. Try the knife...that works!......ow

She is a monster. Searching for love in a world on the brink.
She grabs onto it like Woody Harrelson's character in Zombieland looking for Twinkies

Actually that would be a good summation of how I would play Juliet.

• Hungry
• Apocalyptic
• Craving
• Weirdly moving during that flashback with the dog

Cast me if you dare.