Final Performance Evaluation

At settling in evening I performed my scene from The Witness, before I even get into evaluating my scene and dissecting my performance I want to say I have a new post show feeling of accomplishment.  Not accomplishment  for me as an actor but I feel as if I finally accomplished my objective in my scene and that I fulfilled my characters needs and that feels with a sense of contentment and that I did my scene justice! 

One thing we have been learning about for the entire term is not repeating and having a brand new scene to show every single time we rehearsed it. I felt like I finally understood the purpose of doing this. We had been studying the same 5 minute scene for the past 8 weeks so it was probably inevitable that we would stop listening to each other but we didn't! We weren't just saying our lines on stage and evidence of this is that we made a mistake in our line order and cut out a piece of text but it was virtually unnoticeable, we didn't even have to think about how to save ourselves from our mistake we just spoke. We responded differently to how we would if the line was correct and that's one of the moments that I felt I was truly 100% Simon and that I wasn't just playing him anymore. 

Another example of how I was now living as Simon on stage was when I went over to my bag instinctually and simply put on a jacket which wasn't normal for this character. Simon is from Rwanda in Africa which would be a climate a lot hotter than the one he is in for the scene. I didn't plan or rehearse it - when I was Simon, I was feeling cold so I went and I put on a Jacket but I didn't "act" cold, I felt cold. This made me feel as if I was truly in tune with my character's innermost thoughts because something as common and remedial as putting on a jacket has become something as natural as breathing.

Another thing was I never felt awkward or out of place as an actor on stage. I could always find something to be doing when I wasn't part of the action instead of just standing there with my hands in my lap looking at the ground. In my performance I felt like we communicate the means of our scene fluently and competently without overacting or playing to please the audience. 

The areas of the piece that I could work on is my use of adapting to the stage space. Because our set kept on changing, one week it would have full sofa set with a chair as a coffee table then the next it would be a couple of chairs and tv so we would have to learn to change in the space we were in. Usually the coffee table would be closer to the sofa but that changed so I couldn't distract myself with any items. I could have improved by exploring my environment more and to start off with move way more cautiously through the set eventually becoming comfortable and dancing my way to the final line! 

Another thing I could improve on was my articulation. The previous day I had my braces tightened so my mouth was a little sore but that shouldn't have stopped me from producing every single syllable and making sure to use my entire mouth to sound out complex vowels that Simon would have had trouble saying. I also think that I could have gone even bigger with my singing to Alex at the end and that I could have really played my objective (to entertain) to it's extremities.

Overall I think this term I have improve ten fold as an actor and that I am confidently and consistently using all of the skills that I have been learning in order to become a trained professional actor. I feel as if I have given 100% focus into my character creation so that I could be a 3 dimensional being on stage and not just a cliche! I am glad that my performance went well and that I met the creative potential of the piece.