Rehearsal Evaluation

Evaluation of my ability to perform in rehearsals: 

1. Can you hit your cues?

Yes, I believe I can hit my cues. Having my scenes at the very beginning of the play and the end of the play is an advantage because it ensures that I'm always on time. One issue I am finding hard is keeping up with what units have been performed while I am backstage, since I am off for a long period of time. This is made worse because so far rehearsals have been quite loud. I think that in the future rehearsals if our group learns to focus more, it will be much easier to hit cues because everyone will be able to hear the scenes happening and know when they are meant to be on.

Cues are essential because they make the performance flow. At the moment, there is only a small number of people in my group who are hitting their cues right on time which is making rehearsal time not as efficient as it could be. However, if we all stood at the side of the stage silently with an open ear and came on with energy, playing our objectives then the play will be successful.

2. Are you bringing your objectives on with you?

Unit 1: When my character is first onstage, Hippolyta's brings on her main objective: to explore/examine/review/evaluate her wedding room. It's the first time she has seen it and she's very excited and feels really sneaky and naughty as she technically isn't supposed to see her wedding room till the wedding day. As her and Theseus galavant around the room excitedly, she is fulfilling her objective which I think I am playing well. I am trying to do this differently each time.

 I realised at the beginning of rehearsals that me and Ruby (Theseus) seemed to be a lot more closer to each other during this scene; we felt the need to constantly touch and hold each other. Of course, this couple is very lovey-dovey and have intimate moments all the time but I believe this is the scene which reveals just how excited they are to the audience - it makes the audience excited too because it's the opening scene. Therefore, I have tried to play with the space more to explore and kept the contact with Ruby to a minimum. It's where our characters are truly alone and have the chance to let themselves go whereas when the other characters enter in the following scene (Egeus, Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia), that is when they return to their formal selves and make come closer together, especially as my objective for that scene switches to observe.

For the later scenes at the end of the play, I believe I am playing my objectives well. Initially, I found these objectives a lot more challenging because I have no lines so I may feel more awkward on the stage.  This occurred especially in Unit 28, where myself and Theseus discover the lovers asleep in the forest. I have no lines, so my objective was simply to 'observe'. However, I quickly realised that lines are meaningless and all you have to do is play your objective - without overacting.

Over acting is unjustified and isn't naturalistic and a representation of real life like theatre should be. I am making sure I don't do this by playing objectives naturally, without any force. 

3. Are you using the language well?

Happy days will quickly steep themselves in nights,

Happy nights will quickly dream away the time,

And then the moon, like to a silver bow,

New bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

This is one of my lines. To effectively perform Shakespeare, it is vital to pronounce and enunciate the vowels clearly because vowels carry emotion and bring the colour to your thoughts.  It is also important to stress certain words. Shakespeare's use of iambic pentameter is an indication to the actors of what words to stress and what words not to stress. Some of the words I stress in this speech include 'nights', 'bow' and 'bent'. However, I think to make my lines better, I should especially exaggerate the vowels in this speech a bit more to make sure I am fully appreciating the demands of the text. 

4. Are you breathing in the middle of thoughts?

No, I am not. I am using the punctuation to guide how I deliver the lines, which is making them flow more and helping information go to the audience with more clarity and precision. 

5. This play is not about the final performance but about learning the ability to rehearse.

This statement means that we should be completely committed in rehearsals, hitting our cues and acquiring our skills. The bi product is the performance, which is merely just a polished run of the whole play to a proper audience, but every week we should be truly committing ourselves to rehearsals. This is what a real actor is: someone who can have relationships with other actors and just have commitment all the time. I think I am doing this because every week I come to rehearsals with my notes, script (which is annotated) and I try to keep as quiet backstage, staying in role. I try to do each scene differently every time I do it to have some spontaneity and I try to write notes to self based on the scenes I'd have just performed.