How I plan to portray Friar Lawrence and hopefully I won't fail

Friar Lawrence, introduced in Act 3, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet is certainly one of the more complex characters, being fleshed out with his attempted neutrality on the feud, self-conflicting ideology, and moral struggles that stem from the decision Romeo forces him to make regarding his love for Juliet.

Friar Lawrence is primarily motivated by his religious duties to God at first, but this quickly takes a sharp turn when Romeo presents him with the dilemma of marrying him and Juliet. He soon becomes motivated solely by his duty to the city of Verona, choosing to join them in love in hopes that it’ll stop the feud. Not only is Friar Lawrence faced with internal conflict between prioritizing his duty to God and his duty to the city, he is also filled with (albeit less important) conflict between being a man of the cloth or a man of science, demonstrated in his dual proficiency of religion and biology.

While these conflicts don’t necessarily affect Scene 2, Friar Lawrence clearly strides to the future with a mindset that could be described as simply wanting a brighter tomorrow. Every action that he takes can be evaluated as his attempts to try and save Verona and stop the feud. This overarching goal is clearly shown in his almost heel-turn reaction from chiding Romeo for his misidentified lust to agreeing to marry the pair.

Portraying Friar Lawrence definitely would be difficult in later scenes, and already presents a challenge for the second half of Scene 2. Friar Lawrence, in my opinion, is a character that carries a large amount of wisdom with him, influenced and gained from his various fields of expertise.

Emotionally, Friar Lawrence may be a bit simplistic in the first half of Scene 2, as aside from his opening monologue on the paths that plants may take, he speaks mostly at first with what could be perceived as a mainly patronizing tone but later shifts to a more thoughtful tone as he begins to plan out how he could potentially save the city of Verona from further destruction and violence.