Evaluation- UNIT 3

Evaluation

Thursday 29th November was the day of our Dumb Waiter performance. This play is a one-act play and is performed by the 2 characters Ben and Gus throughout. We were put into pairs to do this and each pair was given 2 pages of the extract each to perform as we did. This play is set in the same scene also throughout which is the basement room. I had never been in a one-act, paired performance so this was very interesting to perform.

Me and my partner Anastasia spent weeks rehearsing together on our short piece. During rehearsals we had to come up with ideas to make our piece engage the audience and also entertain them. Although it was quite short we wanted the audience to experience the comedy out of it. The scene we was given was that Ben had told Gus to ‘light the kettle’ but, Gus thinks the phrase is ‘light the gas’ and so on they continue to debate on the phrase whilst Ben is becoming enraged towards Gus. Gus then uses these matches he found in an envelope and tries to get them to light but, Ben just wants him to put on the kettle. Gus then goes on to annoy Ben even more in this scene by sitting on his bed. The argument is very back and forth between the both and continuous. Me and Anastasia had read our piece of the extract around 3 times before adding the movement. Reading the extract a couple of times was important so we could have a good understanding of the context and what is going on. We both agreed that I would play Ben and she would play Gus. Bens character is very bossy as he is the senior partner so I needed to present this to the audience in my body language and tone of voice. We also had to consider the accents they used which were cockney and we thought we should so then read it in a cockney accent, which would show off our skill and bring out a bit of comedy. My character did not have much movement and in fact stayed in the same place during my scene which was the bed.

In rehearsals we had to consider many performance skills to use during our piece which would help us put ourselves into the character we are playing and this would capture the audiences interests. My character Ben is getting very agitated by Gus in this scene so it was important to display this to the audience in my voice and the gestures. In order to understand the roles we had watched a clip of the play and also I did my own research online. This was beneficial for me to understand the characteristics of the role I am playing. At first me and Anastasia were reading the script quite fast which was not good as it looked rushed. We then began to slow the pace towards the end, which was much better as it flowed well and was seemed more realistic. I projected my voice  with my character and used a harsh tone in my voice. This would show to the audience the role I wanted to portray very effectively. In rehearsals when reading the lines, facial expressions was also a very important thing to consider and they had to be used well. For example my role of Ben is quite irritated in this scene, so to show this I would roll my eyes at Gus when he talks.

During the performance I came across as confident and stayed in role at all times. It was very important that I did not break focus even when members of the audience make comments and are laughing. Although the role was out of my comfort zone I put myself in it and was motivated. I understand my characters feelings, thoughts and emotions which made it easy for me to communicate the character of Ben to the audience. My costume which was a white shirt and a striped tie helped me portray my role and tell the story. I used one prop which was the newspaper the character Ben had been reading and this was another thing that brought the play to life. The bright natural lightning had also set the scene and the audience was able to have a clear image of our performance. My lines were read at steady pace and loud volume. The pace did begin to speed up when arguing with my partner Gus to show the energy of the scene. As a whole group performance including my class the transition from group to group was neat and ran smoothly. The play was told accurately and each group had good memory of lines in order to make the play understandable.