Evaluation

Evaluation

I felt like these performances went very well. We were able to bounce off the energy of the large audience and the special effects such as sound, lighting and the set allowed us to visualise the world we were living in. At the 4:30 performance, the majority of the audience was our peers which created a relaxed atmosphere due to their positive reactions to the play and we were able to bounce off their laughs which made us feel as if we were doing a very good performance. However we couldn’t rely on this as a truthful reception as they were our peers and most likely saw us as ourselves not as actors or characters. This meant that we lost the truth and honesty being our performances as we played up to the audience and some actors played for laughs. I think it is very important to not let the audience distract us as this takes us out of the world of the play, hence stopping us from fully committing to our character. I felt like my excitement and adrenaline threw me off slightly. I definitely was effected by this in the first performance which meant I lost the truthfulness behind my performances, hence making it less believable to the audience. This hindered my performance as I would lose characterisation and have to re-immerse myself while making sure I was saying the right line. This made it difficult to connect to other characters in key moments of the play. However, there were also many successful aspects of my performance. My voice was loud enough to be heard due to my good projection and clear diction. This meant the audience could hear exactly what I was saying and could engage with my character and follow his storyline. I was also able to use my positioning in the space well so that everyone could see me, I made sure I would focus my performance to everyone rather than just one block from the audience. I felt like we were less excited and had less energy for the second performance. However, this ended up being beneficial for my performance. I was more relaxed in myself as a performer and my character. This meant I could take my time and truly think about the motivation and emotion being my action and dialogue on stage. This created an honest performance which allowed the audience to see my character's journey throughout the play. The relationships between me and the other characters were very clear throughout the play and it was apparent what my character through of the other characters in each scene. I had induvial reactions to each character depending on who they were and the circumstances of the scene. We all actively listened to each other and reacted accordingly making the relationships feel real and authentic. I reminded myself of the one main objective I had for each scene as this would drive my characterisation and motivation. 

Brighton

This performance was always going to be a challenge. We were performing outside in the pavilion and the audience could come and go as they pleased. On top of this, we had to vocally compete with other singers and actors who were also performing locally. This meant we has to be very loud if we wanted to be heard at all, let alone help the audience understand the complicated plot and Shakespearean language. We accepted there would be mistakes in this performance and that not everything would go perfectly. I found that everyone was more concerned with their vocals being heard rather than their acting or characterisation. This meant that we lost a sense of the storyline as the subtle things such as facial expressions or exchanging looks were unclear. I struggled to have good physicality or characterisation and trusted that I could automatically convey these things to the audience.  I would have benefitted from being more immersed in Benedick as characterisation would be embedded in my mind. Occasionally, I put too much strain on my voice and this may have damaged it or made my acting seem unnatural, this would disengage the audience from the illusion that the dialogue was casual or natural.