Performance Evaluation

Evaluation

Overall, I feel like my performance went well. I researched the context of the play in great detail as well as including various Brecht techniques we learned in lessons. In addition, I took on the advice Ben and Chris gave me in rehearsals and made sure I made the suitable changes or improvements he suggested so that I could incorporate these in my performance. There were no major mistakes in my performance as I remembered all my lines and the relationships between the characters and objectives were clear.

I was given a number of notes in rehearsals that I needed to use in order to improve my performance. One of these included to make sure I faced the audience rather than having my back to the audience so that they could see me better. Therefore, I decided to cheat my body language so that I was speaking to the audience rather than other characters on stage. This allowed the audience to see more of my facial expressions, therefore having a clearer understanding of the emotions of my character. Furthermore, it became easier to project my voice and it was easier for the audience to hear me. A group note we received was to be more energetic and enthusiastic as the studio audience. This would make the show more exciting and would engage the audience. In order to do this, I made sure I was always concentrating on the action on stage and made sure my I projected loudly and used large gestures. I felt that this was effective as we had a lot of energy in the show.

I feel like I used my voice well in the show as I projected loudly so that everyone could hear me clearly. This was quite difficult as I had a very sore throat which meant I had to strain my voice and put pressure on it. This meant that I couldn’t use my voice very effectively or to my full potential. However, I feel like I used my voice well in the show as I projected loudly so that everyone could hear me clearly. In my opening monologue for ‘The Price’, I had excellent projection and articulation so that I was audible and the audience could hear exactly what I was saying. I changed the volume of my voice when I got angry in the scene and also changed the pitch to be higher so that I would sound more furious and disgusted in a comedic manner which juxtaposed my previous character traits of being sophisticated and calm. My tone also became harsher and aggressive in order to demonstrate that I was offended and I was accusing the cashier of being rude and judgemental. This contrasted to when my character in ‘Britain’s got benefits’ when I was calm and friendly.  The emotion of anger also affected my breath as I became stressed and began to breath heavier which showed this change in emotion. I also changed my physical and vocal relationship as I became less still with large, powerful body language and moved around a lot to show my rage and confusion.

I feel like I had good characterisation in my performance and I permanently had very high energy. I felt like this was important in this performance as we used Brecht techniques which could make the performance exaggerated or abstract. I also contrasted my characters to make them very different. I found particular mannerisms that my characters did and incorporated these in my performance. I felt like it was very hard to have good characterisation for my character in ‘The Price’ as the script was very short, therefore there weren't many given circumstances for me to work with, hence making it difficult to understand how he would react in certain situations. In ‘Britain’s got benefits, it was hard to develop a character because he was a TV presenter who was permanently on camera. This meant that his personality would come across as being fake as he would be told to behave in a particular manner. This appeared as if the character would be wearing a mask, rather than revealing his true personality and what he really thought of people. This made it difficult to relate to the character. Furthermore, it was difficult to put emotion into my performance as we used Brecht techniques which includes alienating the audience and not allowing hem to create a personal connection with the character. 

The rehearsals following the performance were quite stressful because Ben was not there to direct us. He had a very good knowledge of the play and knew the running order. It became quite chaotic as it was hard to have someone who didn't know the play directing us. This was an obstacle at first as everyone was unclear about what we were supposed to do, however we successfully managed to work our way around this.

I feel like I anticipated the lines and acted like I already knew what the other characters were going to say. Therefore, my reaction was less truthful or believable towards the audience.  I think I did this because I was too busy focusing on not forgetting my lines rather than thinking as the character. We were told to act like this was the first time we had ever said the lines, this relates to our reaction as we must react like we've never heard the words before. This affected the work as I struggled to be truly in character on stage. In my next performance, I will make sure I work on how I react to others as well as how I act when I'm saying a line. This will make my performance more naturalistic and believable.

I don’t think that the audience fully understood the political messages that we were trying to convey in our play. The reaction from the audience is not how I hoped it would be. Firstly, they didn't laugh much in the sections in which I personally found comedic or amusing. This may be due to the dark humour such as Tom playing a blind man or Michael and Grace being heavily influenced by the status and power of the criminal they were questioning. I think they may have misunderstood or misinterpreted the jokes in it and didn't think it would have been suitable or acceptable to laugh. This made the Brecht technique of ‘Slap and tickle’ unsuccessful as there wasn't enough contrast between the comedy and the hard hitting realisation of the message behind it. In addition, some of the audience didn't understand the political messages in our piece. This suggests that our chosen method to convey these messages were unclear or unsuccessful. I don’t think they would have walked away from the performance started to reflect on the political messages in the performance. The 270 words was unsuccessful as nobody had enough time to finish saying their paragraph, this meant that the audience were left being confused rather than reflective.