Evaluation

Performance Day One

Tech

 My first performance for The Collaborative Project (Scratch Night). I Found that the chosen venue was very convenient for me to get to, and although very dumpy from the outside, actually really well fitting inside. One concern we had throughout rehearsals was the space of the stage and venue size, when we got into the venue we saw the restricted space we would be performing in , I could tell it was going to be a more intimate space to perform in compared to our usual space within the black box theatre.

The stage was very small/thin however was big enough to perform our scenes on, this did affect us in one way which was our entrances, other than this and a speaker sat in front of the stage the space was perfect. 

Day One’s performance was the selected scene with Sorcha , which is a scene from Dennis Kelly’s “DNA”, I perform this scene with , Mateos,Zac,Sophie,Eloise. When it came to the Teching  for our scene it ran smoothly, however our run through was extremely messy as we would keep dropping lines, skipping sections, forgeting lines and it was just a whole big mess that we bumbled through. 

Sorcha did well as a director to keep us calm and focused so that we didn’t panic ourselfs into oblivion. She allowed us to have some space and then would check up on us occasionally throughout the day to see if we had corrected anything that had previously went wrong.

Compared to other members of the group, I was fairly okay with all my lines , I just had to go over the beatpoint section with Zac to find what line we skipped within the run , this was quickly solved and we got to a point where we started even swapping lines with each other, which was extremely funny to us. Whilst on break I saw Eloise struggling to remember the line that cues me to tell her character to shut up, so I sat down next to her and helped her.

Performance

The Performance itself went much better than anticipated, there wasn’t any horrible long pauses between dialogue and almost every problem held within our run through had been efficiently corrected. One Problem that did occur within the performance was the skiping of minor sections, the one that effected me the most was when Zac skipped ahead a section within our beatpoint duologue , luckily I picked up perfectly on where he had skipped to and managed to carry on the rest of the scene without pause.

One self critic I have on my own performance was that I overacted a couple of the lines, however I played them off well enough that they didn’t feel out off place, this was due to me panicking to say the Dentist lines, in my head the lines where quite similar and when I was thinking of my next lines I started to overthink what I was going to say, so much so that when it came to saying them I was completely unfocused within the moment.

One self praise I will give myself was all the improvised moments I added e.g. Laying on Zac, all the toothbrush stuff. I found myself getting constant laughs at some of the actions I did, even at points where I didn’t even try consciously to be funny , adding the whole toothbrush idea that we only discussed within rehearsal, into the actual performance was one of those last minute, I know how this can work, lets do it kind of moments.

I found it added character within my performance and brought energy of movement , previously I would just sit there nervously shaking , however the toothbrush allowed me more freedom with what I could do rather than just sitting down. In some ways I feel like this was what really brought my character to life. 

Within the performance our connection as a group really shined through, previously we were all making mistakes left,right,front and center, However in the performance the negative tense energy was gone, everyone knew what they were doing and we managed to pull together through a scene that we have all previously struggled at performing . Within the performance you could feel that the energy had changed to a  positive trusting confident’s , honestly I feel like in the performance we had more faith in ourselfs and within our scene partners that we had in any of our rehearsals.

I think more than anything I’m really Impressed how Mateos and Sophie managed to go away recollect themselves, then come back and do the performance with there lines , earlier within the day they were both struggling / panicking about their lines, however they both managed to hold it together on stage and remember everything well enough for the rest of us to feel confident whilst on stage performing with them, super proud.

My Feedback

After the performance I received tons of positive reactions and got given the gift of some amazing feedback from Leanne / Joe.

One such feedback was that I’m always consistent in delivering good quality acting , no matter what piece I do or what the performance holds, I always keep my performance at a good consistent standard, never dipping into a place where I fluctuate in performance quality between shows.  

My statement on this is that, I always try to be my best on the stage no matter what the performance is, I know the feel of acting so if something feels like its gone astray from a certain energy or better ,then I try my best to keep away from it, if a certain energy from my acting doesn’t fit with the energy of the scene then I steer away from it, thats how I try to stay consistent.

Another piece of feedback was that my performance had alot of life to it , I occasionally  overacted slightly however it was within the right energy and it didn’t feel out of place to the audience, It also didn’t effect how much life & energy I brought to the scene. 

After Receiving that piece of feedback I was also told to have more confident’s within myself as I happened to mention that I did pick up on my overacting and that I felt terrible whilst doing it.

My statement on this is, yes I shouldn’t worry too much that I overacted however its definitely something I won’t forget to neglect , although I am aware that slip up’s happen, and I totally should focus on more positives like my performance bringing a ton of energy to a scene. I was delighted to hear that my character really brought something to the scene as nobody likes being a character whose presence is clearly just their to fill the space, and to be honest I felt like that’s what my character would be, as they hardly move within the scene, however the small things I did within my performance to change this got brought to life and worked well to bring what I would consider a lifeless character to life.    

The last bit of feedback I received was that my acting is like “Lightning in a bottle” and that its like a switch goes off that makes people view me differently, which is just amazing to hear, honestly when acting I feel like I’m taking off a jacket and that I have less weight , I get this new feeling that makes me feel like I can do anything, only on stage or whilst acting do I get this feeling, and its that feeling I try to convey within my performance , the energy that I feel is the energy I give. I was also told that my connection with Zac was incredible .

Performance Day Two

Tech

Day two’s tech was just as smooth as day one’s , every group got through the tech hours before show start , so we all was allowed to take a massive break leaving us plenty of time to prepare for the show in our own ways. My tech with Matt was a pretty straight forward tech, no major issues or anything like that , just had to move the sofa where charity wanted it , do our cues , have a run through and done. Hardest thing we had to do was to plan how we was going to come on and where to set our props/ costumes. One costume problem we did have was in the run through I didn’t cover my face with the veil, but thats something that can be easily fixed by me being a bit more aware. 

Performance

On the second night of the Collaborative Project it was charity’s “Pronoun” scene that I would be performing with Matt.  Let me start by saying this scene was like camp, drag, chuckle brothers. Right from the start the set up went wrong with Eloise randomly taking the chairs me and Matt were supposed to set. We had to quickly grab the chairs from her and run onto stage like headless chickens, then we had to carry the sofa on and……Matt stacked it whilst stepping up onto the stage having the sofa fall clumsily to the floor carrying him with it , of course this was hallerious even the crowd through it was funny. All I can say is 1. thank god we weren’t about to go onstage and do a deadly serious piece 2. this was just in the transition… no harm done.

Other than the comedy gold/tragic Transition the performance went amazing , had a few happy accidents along the way however they just added to the scene , one such accidents was Matt not sitting close enough to the sofa edge for me to put makeup on him , this resulted me seductively sliding down the side of the sofa armed with a lipstick . One more unfortunate mistake was when I had to pull our the makeup, the lipstick I pulled out had nothing in , luckily I had a lipstick from a previous run in my jacket that I happened to be wearing and managed to continue as if it were planned.

Performing that scene with Matt was one of the funnest, most hallerious things I have ever done, and to be able to share that with a whole room full of people was magical. In rehearsals me and Matt would constantly get in disputes about lines and it was really silly, however it did make me weary of if Matt would cover me if I made a mistake, luckily I didn’t however the point being, during the performance there was no negativity  between the two of us and we had an amazing connection that could bounce off of each-other , we could go as far as we wanted to go with the scene, and it was amazing to have that freedom with each other, so much so that It didn’t feel like I was on stage , it felt like me and Matt was doing our usual goofing around.