As I previously reviewed our first show was really successful. The main issue with it on my part was the smoking scene. Me and John meisnered this scene before the performance to hopefully allow it to be free and instinctual and not awkward.
Our second show didn't feel as powerful and smooth as the first night. I think this was partly because we hadn't done a run through that day, we had been rehearsing for our physical theatre show. Also I had an hour of a sociology lesson before the show as well. The first night was tiring because we did a 12 hour day with very little break but I think it helped us to be immersed in the world of the show. But on our second night it didn't feel like any of us were living in the show. I know I wasn't listening in the way I had been to the other actors on stage, I had just been repeating the show not living in the show.
The box also created a lot of issues in this performance. When I am meant to pin the box back up after the dream sequence the pins hadn't been tied on their string properly so I struggled to keep the box upright and find the pin on the floor in the dark. This made me very tense and stressed and the technical team eventually came and helped, but it brought me right out of the performance and I was so wound up in the frustration that the audience probably saw and I had very little time to change costume and I feel this must of affected my performance in my next scene but by the second half I felt I began to live more in the play, especially the scene with Sarah and Dennis in prison.
Our final performance night felt a lot better, but still not as great as the first night did. Maybe this was just because opening night is always more nerve racking when you don't know how an audience will react, but this time we had a rough idea of how. The box had a fair few technical glitches this time, it was clearly getting old and needs to retire. I felt like the 2nd night shocked us back into action and we started listening to each other again.
In the killing scene with Sarah and Ruby no vegetables were set out in the box for me to chop and the beginning of the scene, so I couldn't chop then as it would look weird. This meant I just improvised with Ruby more, taking her kindle, tapping it, anything to try keep the pace up on my part, as I have very little lines to respond with. However, when I start to kill her I felt like it worked ok not having anything there I was actually cutting because it was more symbolic and abstract. The audience didn't comment on this after so I think we got away with it.
Some people still needed to work on their projection and articulation as many audience members complained of not being able to here some characters. This was a real shame because I felt like we had created a really strong, living piece and some people weren't pushing their technical acting ability far enough to share this with the audience.
The piece was really well directed as it gave us the chance to find freedom in our acting whilst staying true to the story and the message of the play. When we listened to one another on stage the acting just felt like two or three characters just existing in these imaginary circumstances. I learned so much through this process both in rehearsals and in my own research. We never stopped trying something new and learning something more about our characters and the show right up until the last performance and I think that is what made the piece so effective and the entire process so special.
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