Black and White - Performance Evaluation

I think that overall our performance went well. On the actual show day I think we performed it to the best of our abilities and it was a lot better than the rehearsals as everything just seemed to fall into place naturally.

 

I thought that the delivery of the lines and the clarity of them was a strength for me; I thought that everything was on cue and I said my lines clearly and confidently. I also wanted to deliver my lines using the chorus character that I thought of being mischievous and playful. I thought that throughout each of the plays everyone had more clarity with their words as we were told what words we had to work on with our diction and we got more confident being on a bigger stage. However the first time we showed the play to an audience we made a mistake in one of the chorus scenes as we said the lines in the wrong order but we managed to make it work by repeating the line one after the other; me as playful, somebody else as angry... and so on. I see this as another strength because we all worked together to fix the mistake instead of telling the audience what we did wrong by our facial expressions.

 

A weakness that we had during the rehearsals was our transitions as the performance space was two times bigger than the space we usually rehearsed at. For example the final chorus scene in act one we all had to come on with chairs but we ended up being slightly late and we all weren't spaced out evenly because we were rushing to get in our places, so this ended up looking untidy but once we figured out when to come on it ended up looking much better and the chorus was on at the correct time.

 

For the pace in the performance I thought it was very good especially on Wednesday night, because for me I thought that it was the best performance that we all did as we were all excited but more nervous as we knew our family and friends were seeing it that night so it made the energy levels pick up. I felt that within each of the chorus scenes brought the energy level up in the play and without it the play would of dragged a little bit as the chorus was a crucial part in the play. The only thing that was a problem for me on that night was in my hair I had pencils, to give off the effect of journalists but one of them slipped out and fell on the floor; I think I handled the situation really well as I just kicked it behind the block without any of the audience seeing what I was doing.

I felt that as a main member of the chorus all the chorus members worked well together and we bounced off each other with ease. Me and another main chorus member Paige, used each other to show the rivalry between the chorus members, as journalists fight to get their story on top. I think this made our characters seem more believable. The only chorus scene that I would see as a weakness was the end scene of act one. The reason I saw this as a weakness is because I think some of our movement such as when we did the ‘’Shout for joy shout’’ bits could have been clearer and we could have worked on it more as I think it was unclear as some of us were unsure of what we were doing.

As a group I felt as if we all did our best to achieve the performance style and managed to achieve it which was Greek theatre with a contemporary adaptation which the audience could relate to with some realism that brought out the tragedy in the piece. I think overall everyone worked really hard on their individual characters and their chorus characterisation so this created a believable performance with different personalities.

 

During the rehearsals we had a lot of talking backstage as nobody knew what scene was next, however on the performance day I thought that everyone backstage was very supportive with each other with for example helping people get in their costume and help moving the props backstage so they were out of the way. There was still some talking but only minor things which helped each other out if someone was confused about the scenes. I felt like everyone did their best to create the best possible performance and that everyone really concentrated on the things they needed to improve on. 

 

I think that by the end of 'Black And White' everyone really enjoyed performing it, as we all had a chance to play around with it and make it our own. Overall I think we put on a really good performance and everyone tried their best and the end result was due to team work, concentration and determination.

Greek Tragedy Week 7

This week we started doing a run through of the play especially in movement we ran through act one but it wasn't smooth at all and it was clear that people were getting confused with the order of the scene and the transitions were affected by this everyone wasn't clear on the entrances and exits of each scene so we went through each one individually so everyone knew. Once this was clear it all started to come together.

 The next day we did a improvisation warm up, where we would do a run through of act 1 but it was a fun run so we had to keep changing it to a different style for example,

 

- EastEnders
- Farmers
- Essex
- Doctor Who
- Clowns
- Vampires

 

I found this exercise so entertaining to watch and so fun to do yet I also found it helpful because some of the different styles we did could incorporate within our Greek theatre. One style where I thought the exercise could be incorporated was when the chorus had to do their sections but in a style of clowns I thought it looked really effective and different. I also thought the fun run was good because you could see all the different things that everyone could do like accents and voices and I thought it was effective because I could show that I was confident being completely silly and I wasn't afraid of stepping outside the barrier and doing something different, as my character is supposed to be mischievous and playful.

 

We then started doing a run through of each act and sorted out and polished any little bits that need to be changed. Music was then added which I thought really brought the whole piece together and added more tension to the drama so it looked really effective. By the end of this week I feel confident in the upcoming show week.

Greek Tragedy Week 5

This week we worked on developing Electra 2's monologue where Electra is asking the mourning women for help; the mourning women were the journalists in disguise. We had previously blocked it, so this time we just had to polish it and redo some movements. As the chorus we used newspaper to hide our faces at the beggining and added in more actions using the prop. For example on the line when Electra says "I cannot pour out the oil, the wine, the milk, the honey" we all throw the newspaper in the air and watch it flatter on the floor after each line that she said. Another example is the line; "As he poured out his blood", we dive outwards onto the floor with the newspaper in our hands, this looks really good because we use our bodies as if we are the blood that poured out of Agamemnon. Showing a visual as well as an audio of what Electra's saying.

I link arms with the rest of the chorus in a straight line which quickly turns into a tangled circle where Electa is standing in the middle- this mirrors how Electra is gullible thinking she has lots of support from the women but really they don't want to help her and she has no one to ask except the Gods. In the next section where Electra has dialogue with us (the chorus) she follows each person that speaks to show that Electra is desperate for advice and information. I had lines in this scene and one of my lines was, "Evil for evil is Justice." And this is a key moment as this is the point were the chorus finally convinces Electra to do their bidding - killing her mother.

We also went over the chorus section again when Helen and Electra first meet just to see if we needed to adapt the chorus movements in that section in anyway. Me, Alicia, Paige and Joe also started setting and experimenting with the chorus doing some sort of action or gestures whilst Electra (Shelby) is doing her first monologue to try and show Electra's story.

We looked at creating a character of being journalist so we did our journalist poses, and we also looked at if you were a journalist how would you hold yourself and walk around the room? I thought that my character would be higher status for a journalist so I walked around the room with my head looking across my right shoulder but my hand covering my mouth. Although doing this makes me seem lower status behind my hand is always a mischievous grin. Portraying that although I may seem to be on your side and plotting with you I’m actually against you.

Overall this week I feel like I developed my individual character and understood her more. E.g. why she does most of things she does and why she does it that way. Hopefully creating a character that the audience connects to and understands.