evaluation

On the 16th March 2017, we performed our production of 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' by William Shakespeare.On the 16th of March

Before the performance my initial expectation was that there were going to be a lot of mistakes because this was the longest performance we have done as a group.
My experiences with shakespeare have been challenging as i find it hard to remember the language especially with speeches or monologues,so when I was given the role of Silvia i was quite nervous
Overall the rehearsal process in my opinion was quite slow especially when my group done run throughs as the pay is so long and certain scenes needed to be perfected.
The performance went well,better than i expected,considering that we only had one technical rehearsal i was very surprised that everyone got there cues correct.
In the begging of the performance i feel that it went very quickly i could say that it was a bit rushed
i believe thats because of nerves and a downfall that i picked up on in this performance is that everyone concentraed more on the delivery f the lines than the performance itself and if i as an actor could see it I’m sure the audience picked up on it as well,
The performance ran smooth and although i was nervous i very much enjoyed the play and performing as Silvia.
There were a few mistakes when people delivered there lines but that didn’t surprise me as the play is in shakespearian language and thats quite common with long performances.

Whilst performing the play i rWhilst performing this play I remember the. Feedback I got given by my tutor:
Speak louder
Show Silvia as an innocent character
The way I deliver my speech is usually down to my confidence so to over come this I used Stanislavskis taught technique of acting realistically,imagining myself as Silvia taking over her voice and physicality,once I do that the audience doesn't really become visible to me so I can concentrate on being Silvia.
I do believe my overall delivery of the speech and punctuation was excellent.
To show Silvias innocence the first time I walked on stage I wanted to stage I wanted to show my interest in Valentine
But then when he shows the same interest back I have wanted to shy away
To show I'm afraid of love
This worked really well and from the feedback I got from the other classmates after the performance it came across as I expected.

We had a minimalistic set and we didn't include many props the main props we had were costume changes.
When we performed everyone knew what costume changes they needed to get into and it ran smoothly
The main prop we had on stage was a chair
This was used as a balcony
In rehearsals in the theatre space the chair was usually in the wrong position
Stopping me from taking it off stage easily
But when performing it was put in the perfect position allowing me to take it off stage without any difficulties.

The overall performance was entertaining.
Our energy levels were high on both performances.
The scene I was mostly cautious about performing was my scene with Jiulia(Leonie).
It took me and Leonie a few weeks to actually understand how both characters were around each other and how we both were supposed to react on certain lines.
We had to do background research on the characters to understand how they were around each other.
I watched the actual play on film to grasp
The message we both had to show to the audience.
When we performed it flowed so well
It was clear that we both bounced off each other.

To improve the performances
I would say that we all needed to practice with the props more.
Most of our rehearsals were without props we would normally have to mime the props so we didn't have that much practice.This lead to a few mistakes in our performance
For example when Valentine tried to pick up the sward it flew to the other side of the stage.
This got a few giggles from the audience which was not intended.
Another improvement could be the pronunciation of words.
A few actors in this performance had bad punctuation at  moments on stage
This could seem like an actor is blocking ,As an audience member could see it as the actor had forgot there lines.
As an actor it is always good to correct and work on punctuation whether it's with tongue twisters or exercises ,it's really obviously as an audience member which actors have a good punctuation of words.
Individual feedback for myself would be for myself to concentrate of the punctuation of words and how i deliver them.There was a certain word that i couldn’t pronounce in rehearsals but when performing i remember the feedback i got from the mispronunciation- of that word and i managed to say it correctly.

My last scene with Valentine and protius was my favourite scene,in the performance there was a muddled up  of lines between me and protius but we managed to overcome that and delivered our lines chronologically.
In the next performance i would like to enjoy the moment as thats something i struggled with.

Two gentleman of Verona

 Who is Silvia?

Silvia is the spirited daughter of the Duke of Milan and Valentine's girlfriend. When she falls in love with Valentine, she rebels against her father's wishes and makes plans to elope. Silvia is so determined to be with Valentine that, when her father banishes Valentine from Milan, Silvia runs away to the forest, where Valentine is
I had to read the play over to understand it fully so I set that as my goal for the next two weeks.
Weekly:
 today we line read  through the script to get used to our characters .
On  Monday we had worked on specific scenes and just running through them and line running. Nothing really changed. We worked on the Julia  scene in order to make it a bit less messy and it was flowing a lot better. We didn't receive any feedback as it was self-directed learning, so nothing had really changed or been altered.
Me and Leonie focus on the meaning of the lines to understand the lines more
Getting used to this backend forth speech
We realised it is a quite touching scene between both characters
Showing each other that they care for Julia
this week we had a full run through in front of the other group and Rob. The run through went quite well. In my opinion, the run through was quite smooth up until the last ten pages of the script then our group began to decline in fluidity. Our group is still struggling with lines and cues in a lot of places so this needs to be worked on.
Friday was our technical rehearsal so we worked from cue to cue
In this rehearsal we didn't perform whole scenes
Just the cue lines and endings
This helped us get familiar with the cues
Allowing us to know when we exit and enter different scenes


Today we line read through the script to get used to our characters. On
 Monday we had worked on specific scenes and just running through them and line running. Nothing really changed. We worked on the Julia  scene in order to make it a bit less messy and it was flowing a lot better. We didn't receive any feedback as it was self-directed learning, so nothing had really changed or been altered
Me and Leonie focuses on the meaning of the lines to understand the lines more
Getting used to this backend forth speech
We realised it is a quite touching scene between both characters
Showing each other that they care for Julia
this week we had a full run through in front of the other group and Rob. The run through went quite well. In my opinion, the run through was quite smooth up until the last ten pages of the script then our group began to decline in fluidity. Our group is still struggling with lines and cues in a lot of places so this needs to be worked on.
Friday was our technical rehearsal so we worked from cue to cue
In this rehearsals we didn't perform whole scenes
Just the cue lines and endings
This helped us get familiar with the cues
Allowing us to know when we exit and l different scenes
Next week is out final week,I am confident in myself and the performance and my other class mates


Learning some of my lines over the half term made it easier for me to focus on my acting in the play as Silvia and get into my characterisation  without looking at the script. In rehearsals Rob was adding the feedback to the scenes so that they don't seem scripted so when I was doing the scene with Julia he was sitting down although when I was rehearsing with Rob in the theatre when Julia was absent Rob was portraying Julias character and he told me how the scene should be so he said Julia will be standing and about to leave and you will go up to her asking her Who gave the letter to her.
This scene was one of the hardest scenes to perfect as Leonie didn't really know her lines.
Here is some of the feedback I received.

today was our technical rehearsal,
everyone seemed ready and was engaged in the rehearsal
the cues were all good however some people did come in to early.
Me and Leonie’s scene went really well,the conversation we had bounced off each other.

There are many themes in this play here are the main themes:
friendship
love
betrayal


Previous experiences (Shakespeare)
Prior to this project I have auditioned to drama school? and colleges in Shakespearian language,although i am not very confident with the language.
I have also analysed and studied the text in english lessons and for exams.
I also studied latin which is quite similar to the language.
The language is not new to me but i can not say i am an expert.

Acting Challenges
I know that i will face many challenges but my main challenge is  confidence,as im performing in
 Shakespearean language I’m not confident with the speech and punctuation,

Targets  
My targets for this project will vary throughout the unit.
 line learning is a target for me as i know i do struggle.
As an actor it is important to know your lines as it prevent "Blocking".
Characterisation is also another target for me,being able to become another character  by the way they talk walk,is important to me and that is mainly down to the research i do on the characterisation of Silvia.
 Uta Hagens three questions will also help with my characterisation as it allows me to become the character and understand their thoughts.

Warm up and characterisation activities:

For actors warmup are essential whether it's tongue twisters or tongue exercises .
Our normal daily exercises consist of tongue twisters and stretches.
Warmup a exercises the brain and the body.
The first warm up we done involved two people repeating the numbers 1,2,3 in chronological  order,you say the number 1 then your partner says the number 2 then you say the number 3 then it's repeated from the beginning .At first when Rob was explaining the exercises I thought it was going to be easy
It didn't seem challenging at all but when got into it,it was hard to remember the sequence.

The activity that helped my characterisation of Silvia was the Activity that Sharon introduced us to.
We had to pick an emotion that outlines our character in the play
I chose innocence as I relate that emotion with her.
We then had to match our emotion with some else in the class who's characters emotion is similar to ours.
Mine was Alexandra's character who's emotion was kindness.
We both had to enter the middle of the circle and walk around (as our characters)
It was a competition to show who could show there emotion the best.
We both showed similarities in the way we presented our character physically.
We both walked "gently" and our feet were soft on the floor.
I done a twirl around Aleks and by doing this I won the competition.
This was a good exercises and by doing this
I understood how to present my character of Silvia.

research links:
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/twogentlemen/

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jul/23/the-two-gentlemen-of-verona-rsc-stratford-review