Electra

The performance of my pre 1900 play, (Electra) I believe was not performed to the best of my ability. I believe this as my pre 1900 was the first play I was to perform and I began to become very nervous, you could see this as I tended to rush my lines and some of the lines were not coming across as clear as I could have said them, I also stuttered on some of my lines as the nerves were appearing, however even with these nerves I kept in character and felt I performed well.

I do believe I played the character to the best of my knowledge, knowing what the character had been through and showing these emotions to the audience proved to be very easy for me, this may be as I used past emotions of upset and grief. I believe that these emotions became very clear to the audience and showed what the character was feelings, along with facial expressions and the slow movement ‘Electra’ used, I think I also came across as angry when ‘Electra’ had arguments with her sister.

I think I played the role of ‘Electra’ very well as I used as much authority as I did have over Electra’s sister and also showed that she was very strong willed, and that nothing that anyone could say or do was going to get in the way of her wanting revenge.

The stage for this play was an open ended stage, this was a very minimalistic set as all the furniture we used was a garden bench, and this was as we set our pre 1900 play in modern day settings. I believe myself and Chantelle put on a good performance despite our mistake at the beginning of the play, this play showed a lot of emotion and came across as a very moving play, I was very pleased with the outcome.

I believe the play ‘Kindertransport’ was played very well, however again some lines were missing and again nerves were present, though these nerves were still present they did not show within my acting or the way my lines came across, even though some of the lines were missing in this play the audience did not notice and the characters were still on stage, we picked up the lines and carried on, I thought this play was performed very well.

My character came across as a very doting mother trying to do the best for her daughter. I believe I played this very well and also had a settle quite tone in my voice to show how much she cared for her daughter, I myself believed that I was the mother of this young girl and acted this out as I was the character, I believe this also came across this way to the audience. I think myself and Chantelle performed this very well and showed the mother daughter tension and also the mother daughter love in this scene.

This then also gave an insight to the audience in what was happening in this play. The third and final scene was very tense as it was a very heartfelt scene, this was shown by the amount of pauses that had been put into place to create tension and the way in which the mother manoeuvred questions which she did not want to answer, this was acted very well and showed tension.

Our set for this was again acted on a open ended stage with a minimalistic stage, this included; a few boxes with different things in each such as, crockery, cutlery, books, desk lamp table cloths and also glasses, the boxes were placed front center stage as we acted out scene behind the boxes. I had a fantastic time playing the role of ‘Joyce’ in my devised play, I thoroughly enjoyed the play and also all the characters. I believe this was my most successful performance out of the three.

It took a lot of research into the characters, with the costume, the job roles and how that influenced the characters and also research into world war two, I needed to understand how people would be feeling and use this emotion on stage. I think this was performed to my very best and this showed. I became very upset when I knew our Country was at war and also became upset whilst reading a letter from ‘Mags. ‘ All movement was carefully thought through and speech was projected even when the scenes were very tense and upsetting.

I kept eye contact with other characters throughout this performance where it was needed. As there were four characters in this play it was essential that we were all together to rehearse, however on occasions this was not possible, therefore we had someone speak in for the characters that were not present. Despite not having a lot of rehearsals I think this was the strongest play in which I had performed throughout my drama exam, we received a very positive feedback from the audience and all felt pleased within ourselves that we had put on a brilliant performance.