The day started with our dress
run. I think that this went well as we could finally see how the show would
come together, we also trailed the makeup for the show which we hadn’t done
before, for me the makeup brought out character even more, most people had the
same makeup however my character had a black strip also, this shows the
aude4ince immediately that i was a bad character.
The dress run went well with only a few small mistakes, this was the
first time we were using the masks for the show as the cloaks we were
originally meant to have were not made so we used mask instead, the mask was
too loose for me during the dress so during my scene with Titus i was struggling
to keep my characters physcialisation up so i had this tightened before the 4pm
show. The masks also posed the challenge of being heard as it covered my mouth.
The dress run gave me the opportunity to find how i needed to use my voice during
this scene during the show.
I feel as though the cast were nervous for our first show due to it being
quite experimental. However i feel as though we portrayed the story well and i
played my character to the best of my ability.
The Hakka was performed with energy
and dedication, as an all female cast i feel like we needed to make our first
impression powerful which we achieved during the Hakka, what i found extremely
effective was being near the door so i could be very close to the audience and
intimidate them, it immediately changed any perception of what the audience
thought the play would be about and the messages we were trying to portray. I feel as though the Hakka was better received
at the 4.30 show rather than the 7pm show as the audience reacted more physically,
this may of been because our audience for the first show was slightly younger
and we also had a lot of adrenaline due to it being our first show and the need
to impress the audience was greater.
For y character i was very in role in the 4.30 show and was immediately
in character, I was elbowed in the neck by jamila when she was being dragged
away however i had to deal with it and I didn’t break my character. Because my character
doesn’t have any lines at the start of the play I felt I needed to really make
sure my physical actions and the way i was moving fit to my character so people
could immediately understand who i was. I feel as though i achieved this and I
had several people approach me after the shows telling me they hated my character
which was exactly what we were trying to achieve.
During the rape scene of the first show i felt it went very well, it was
easier to do in the new theatre as the floor wasn’t carpeted so there was the
worry of giving lavina carpet burns, the only thing that went wrong was when i
went to get the sleeves out of the cauldron i accidently also picked up ambers
so had to pass it back to her however i don’t think this mistake was noticeable.
During the second show the rape scene was definitely harder to do due to my
energy being lower and being tired but I still feel it went well. I struggled
tying on the arms onto the dress in the second show however i still feel as
though it went well.
I felt as though bassianus death in both performances wasn’t as good as
it could have been due to not knowing how to properly use the blood however it
still looked effective but i would definitely practice this if we were continuing
to show the work.
For me i felt like the cast as a whole really shared the story of Titus Andronicus.
Sometimes its hard to watch and fully understand Shakespeare but because our
cast knew all our intentions and acted through them this really showed. Furthermore
the way it was staged and the experimental feel to it also helped the audience to
understand as they were drawn in by everything that was happening. When i asked
audience members afterwards they had fully understood what was happening
through the whole play which I felt was something that was very well done.
Another thing that was executed
well was the transitions between characters. Although I didn’t have a character
change I felt like the way character changes were blocked were very effective, after
seeing the other two Shakespeare productions I definitely felt that ours had
the best transitions and most understandable character changes.
Projecting our voices in the new theatre was quite difficult. It is a
three sided theatre so you have to make sure you aren’t blocking out any of the
audience when you are talking, however I felt like we all did this well and we
could be heard at all moment, this was something I struggled with during the
dress performance however during both shows I improved greatly.
We were all very committed to the performance and I feel as though this
really showed through our energy, the experimental nature of the show meant we
needed to be focused and we all were, as an ensemble this is something to be
very proud of there was no moment where someone wasn’t in character and this
makes all the difference to the audience as it sets the right atmosphere.
Another thing that set the atmosphere was the set. The set and costumes all
brought our acting together. The lights se the right atmosphere for the right
moments and the costume brought individual bits of character out, the set being’
everywhere and nowhere’ was good as it meant we were telling the story rather
than focusing on set, the costume told more of where we were set in Rome. The set
was very dark and under lights it was very intense which matched the atmosphere
of the play. The style was animalistic and bold and as a group of females this
could have gone very wrong however it worked amazingly.
Between the 4pm show and 7pm show
ben gave us some notes, they were that the maggot pile at the start needed to
be slowed down. I understood this as we hadn’t rehearsed it properly before the
show so it was inevitable we were going to do it slightly worn, however there wasn’t
many other notes.
The technical elements and our concentration helped the shows to be amazing,
it was two shows i was very proud of and is the favourite thing I’ve done in my
time at the brit school.
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