Evaluation

I thought our piece went brilliant and I would love to perform it again, I can’t believe it’s over! I think all of us as an ensemble worked hard and committed 100% to the final piece which I think was evident.

The lack of energy was something I had mentioned that some of the cast had previously been struggling with in rehearsals, so it was pleasant to see everybody fully committing and being completely immersed in the production. It was always going to be imperative our energy levels remained high throughout our whole performance as the audience were always going to feed off of ours. I found this was possible because of ours and as long as were completely engaged, so were they.

I enjoyed very much how we involved the audience were during various moments in our piece. Many actors were breaking the fourth wall during different parts: we had people standing outside as bouncers and ushers and greeting the audience members as they came inside. This links to the Artaudian idea of effecting the audience as I think that they were effected by just how involved we made them feel in the performance. Certainly at some points, I think we worked hard enough for them to believe they weren’t actually at a performance anymore but inside an actual club.

 

Our performance never failed to be effective for almost the entire piece. The energy was high and we as actors never kept anything inside; we threw ourselves into the action which enabled the piece to run smoothly and fluidly with a good pace. Although the order of our scenes were only determined in the moment, I think we were able to make the audience question that by just how prepared and smooth we made it appear. We had to be on our toes throughout the whole performance and that made it that much more exciting and experimental.


I have always favoured the element in which our performance used much of technology within our scenes. We never relied on it to tell the story for us but it added so much more to our performance and made it that more effective. We allowed the sounds to influence the way we were acting and our feelings. We let the technology take some of the strain of filling the audience in on what was going on so that when we did personally perform, it was given our full concentration and energy.

I think everyone’s scenes went efficiently and smooth. I enjoyed how the ensemble never stopped acting when they realised it wasn’t their scene, or their scene had already been performed ect. Everyone remained 100% focused and committed and fed off of other people’s actions. Even those who remained behind the audience still reacted to everything that was going on. The transitions from scene to scene went smoothly also despite our final dress rehearsal lacking them completely. We all worked well together to help.

So many aspects of our piece were successful but there are always going to be the un-successes of a performance. Having never performed to a proper full room of an audience, we never anticipated space to a full extent. Some audience members had moved their chairs too close to the stage so that they were closer to us but that meant we didn’t have as much space to perform in. Some of the spacing issues were down to us as performers anyway. During the final section where we performed our physical theatre movements, people were grouping in certain spaces, leaving some completely empty yet no one thought to actually move into that space, thus generating more for everyone else. If we could perform it again I would wish that we were all more a bit space aware.

Another slight problem that we experienced as an ensemble were the late comers who turned up during our performance half way. It wasn’t dramatically deterring to our performance but it did take away some of the illusion we were trying to build. The room remained dark and the night club was in full swing and I think we were beginning to hypnotise and affect the audience into really believing they really were in a nightclub. Halfway through the performance, the curtains were drawn by the door, flooding in the bright light and capturing the audience’s attention and stealing it away from what we were trying to lure them in with our performance and a few people entered the room and stood by the door awkwardly, there being no seats left for them. It sort of threw us off guard as actors but we had to just get on with it and carry on, working 10 times harder to get the audience back on track with the performance.

I personally loved Experimental term and creating Experimental theatre. I’ve learned so much about theatre as a whole, not only experimental, and I’ve learned the theories and ideas of practitioners which really challenged my own. Theatre doesn’t have to consist of speech and a linear story, but it can be stories or messages inspired by nearly anything. Create a feeling, have an audience and you’ve got the basics of theatre. I had so much fun this term and it has been my favourite so far, definitely the most interesting. I learnt how to work as an ensemble but how to be individual with both devising and acting. I’ve benefited huge amounts from this experience and I hope to create a similar piece of immersive theatre in the future. Experimental theatre term has been incredibly enjoyable for me. If I could perform our piece again a million times over I would. Actually maybe not because the songs would kill my brain cells if I had to hear them again, but I really really really did like it and thank everyone for their hard work and for pulling it off. And thank you to the amazing director of course for all her time and effort and commitment, even if it appeared we weren’t at some point. We rocked.