I am ecstatic at how our performance went. I was so nervous behind stage but once we got on and started performing it just seem to be over in a flash. I was really overwhelmed with some on the responses I got. It so nice to hear our hard work paid off. I was nervous in the final two weeks because everything still seemed to be in working progress but we pulled it out of the bag.
The theatre company module has been a world wind of emotion and hell of a lot of hard work has gone into our finishing process. Often I found people in our group felt like they were not getting enough credit for the hard work they put in. But it has to be said that this module was a group project and we all put so much effort into. Everyone deserves credit for the time and patience they have put into making Forefront Theatre Company happen! Well done to us all and we should all be proud.
With the performance over the time for analysis is here, I had two parts in this performance that required my attention.
The acting style I utilised throughout this performance was the Stanivlaskian method, utilising past memories and implementing them into my character. I divided this method up into sections, child, adolescent, adult, senior. In having set perimeters and having the script divided into sections, it helped the actor get into character and assume the necessary role required by the script.
First of all was acting, even though my part within the performance was not as large as some others in the group, I still played an integral part in the performance. My first appearance was in the ensemble for “I want”, the songs included in this performance, I felt, needed my voice. David Howard, when writing about choral synthesis singing, states, “In less experienced choirs tuning often lacks precision, typically because individual singers have not developed appropriate listening skills” (Howard, 2013, 135). Howard’s investigation delves into the correct synchronisation of a choral quartet, as most choral singing includes chords of four parts. Having previous experience singing in harmony’s to listen was very important for me, as other members of the group were not as vocally strong as others. In listening, I was able to detect if another chorus member was out of key, at this moment in time it is important for the more experienced individuals to pick up on this and fix the issue. Seeing as there was only one other male in Forefront, our vocals had to be perfect in order to have an impact and stand out, thankfully, Oliver Parkes and I have had training in holding a harmony. The decision to sing a capella mainly stemmed from difficulties with tech, the thought of this had an impact on the rest of the cast, who had already expressed their anxiety of singing, as the majority were not strong singers.
The next scene that I had an influence on was within “Expectations v Reality”, playing the expectation role. Originally my role within this scene was to be reality, along with Oliver Parkes, this was changed, however, to provide continuity in the scene. These scenes required the actors to provide a snippet of character with each delivery line; the first instance of this was my first line in this scene, “School with be easy and fun, just like my parents always told me!”. There was juxtaposition with my first line in expectations v reality, and the final line, through these two, the first, referring to first starting school, and the last speaking of what I play to do when I retire. Thanks to the starting and finishing like of these scenes, as an actor, you are able to mould a character, and grow with them.
My movement scene with Eden Shortt was my most difficult scene within this performance, as I am not a natural dancer. Having been told numerous times about my limitations when it comes to free flowing movement, like dance, being told that I was to be included in a movement scene was nerve wracking. My inspiration for the movement I produced thanks to Mia Kaur and Eden was inspired by Duo MainTenanT’s, Mystere (2010). The movement and acting in this scene envisioned love itself and inspired me to want to create that same feeling on stage. Obviously limited by our skill and confidence, Eden myself and Mia had to create a piece with similar convictions and purpose, the idea of adding stimuli into the scene in the form of ribbon was attempted. The story centred Christianity v Catholicism in Ireland; hence the use of ribbons, when the idea of stimuli was thrown around the room, similarly with Duo MainTenanT’s piece I was reminded of a performance on a Russian television show entitled Ice and Flame. Contestants Tatiana Navka and Alexey Vorobyov, performed a movement piece on stage, reflecting on their love and the idea of unfaithfulness, using water as their third party stimuli, the piece was moving and powerful, their anger but desperation in using this water inspired me to create the same struggle with the ribbon. The scene came under critical scrutiny and I was almost dropped from it indefinitely, upsetting at first, but I understand my own limitations so excessive movement was out of the question. But through compromise and adapt a scene was created which, in my personal opinion, conveyed love, that moment on stage, even though personally dance is not something I whole-heartedly understand, I felt all the emotions that I intended.
The final scene, where I played the Doctor, diagnosing Ashleigh, changed a lot over the course of the rehearsal period. Originally 3 times as long as the final piece, at first audiences could not tell decipher the character of the doctor from the writing, that was the first to be altered. Then came the staging, it was decided that Sophia, playing Ashleigh, would lead the doctor on, like a puppet, onto the stage and begin the scene. I held my reservations about this approach, as the patient is never in control of a diagnosis situation, I expressed my confusion as to why the doctor would not be dictating Ashleigh’s memories, but it was explained that the character is only remembering specific segments of her own memory. From utilising Stanislavski’s method of acting I was able to recall, from personal experience, how a doctor would act in this situation, I still however, had my reservations about not being in control of the scene.
There were some difficulties along the way throughout this performance, these difficulties stemmed from the fact that, as actors, we all have our individual views on how something should be performed. In Stanislavski: an Introduction (2004) by Jim Benedetti, he summarises Stanislavski’s writings on actor methods, cut from Creating A Role (1961), one instance in these writings reflected the trouble we experienced as a company. Stanislavski, when speaking of interpretations of a script, states, “If the reading is done by the author, or someone who knows the work, so well and good. He need not be a good reader but he knows the inner line of the piece” (Benedetti, 2004, 86). The fact our piece was written, and edited numerous times, as a cast we became confused at to what the narrative was and each of us generated our own views, Stanislavski summarises these views and states “Views are rarely unanimous on any given point. Most often than not they are quite contradictory and for the most disparate and unexpected reasons” (Benedetti, 2004, 86-87). In knowing this, our problems became less stressful and did not play on my mind, we all have our own styles, but it was finding common ground that eventually stabilised our performance.
Performance analysis:
So the performance is over and it went about as well as expected, a few slight flaws, but we managed to soldier on and not let it affect us. The most important thing throughout our run was the togetherness we all developed along the way, we each had our differences but we came together in order to provide the backbone our performance was yearning for. There were issues on the day, notably the inclusion of a capella singing, instead of singing with our backing track, this caused some worry among members of the cast but, as previously mentioned, the stronger singers were able to pick up the slack, and through the confidence that was oozed the vocals improved.
Marketing:
Now to switch to my role in Marketing, through the rehearsal period it was hard to gauge how to perfectly market this show, as it changed so many times. First step was to tackle the social media side of the marketing scheme, in setting up the social media pages, using just the logo’s, it became easy to market even though the performance was constantly changing. My aim was to keep the YouTube updated week by week, but I encountered problems as my views and the directors clashed on how the videos were to be presented, that coupled with our sporadic rehearsal schedule made the video blogs impossible. I still managed to record snippets of rehearsals that I shall make into a compilation video, as a send off and to show future employers should they show an interest in the play. One thing I was proud off with my marketing is that fact I received no help, everyone I managed to achieve I created myself, teaching myself how to use photo shop, and educating myself into the inner workings of utilising social media appropriately.
Another Marketing scheme that was deployed was the use of photographs
These photos were to be placed around the university, to get people involved in the performance and tweet their own life lessons. Unfortunately, they had limited success. They were originally intended to be a part of the performance, however they were never implemented in.
Getting my image into the LPAC and brochure was a great success for me personally;
Samuals. 2015. Forefront Theatre, Shoes to Fill, Copy Image. Lincoln
The image was to reflect the importance of shoelaces, learning to tie shoelaces is an important stepping-stone in life. Classed as Observational learning, we watch others in order to learn how to tie shoelaces, this action is an outward reflection of our performance. There are three stages to observational learning: exposure, acquisition, and acceptance. We are exposed to countless models, but pay attention to very little. The second stage involves the observer learning the modelling cues and storing them in memory. If stage two is achieved then observational learning has taken place, the observer has accepted the model. (Speilger, 2014). Here Speilger explains to us the model of observational learning, relating this back to Shoes to Fill, one must understand our intentions of the performance. Do we follow in the footsteps that we have observed and learned, or do we make our own life decisions, such is the contradiction of the ‘American Dream’. American’s are told the perfect whole round lifestyle consists of, a job, a wife, a house, a car and children, over the years this has changed, and in reflection to recent economical and climate change a lot of these basic goals are problematic.
Blog:
Forefront Theatre’s blog was maintained mainly by myself, these duties included; keeping the information up to date, making sure each cast member had their information and photo’s included, also to provide all the required contact information for the company. Also including links to any social media that may have been created. There have been many problems with the blog itself, mainly stemming, again, from our different views as a theatre company, some things were changed without authorisation and other things were changed and then broken. Luckily nothing was changed that has had any detrimental effect on the blog, communication seems to be lacking in terms of what is wanted from the blog, and what is expected. I wanted the blog to be fun and creative, originally going for a live style theme, the only drawback of this being that a photo would need to be published in each post for it to have the required impact.
Works Cited:
Benedetti, J. (2004) Stanislavski: An Introduction. New York, Routledge.
Howard, D, Daffern, H, Bereton, J. (2013) Four-Part choral synthesis system for investigating information in a Capella choral singing. York: University of York.
Spiegler, D. (2014) Observational learning and modelling therapy (psychology) Salem Press Encyclopaedia of Health
