Feedback on Shakespeare performance

Before we got to sit on the side and be an audience for everyone’s play, we sat with our partner(s) and did a self-assessment on what our objective is within the rehearsal. My objectives were:
·         To slow down when delivering my lines
·         Not pacing/moving around too much

I think that I achieved my first objective because the audience were able to understand what I was saying very clearly as I was loud, not mumbling words and my pace was slow enough so the audience can hear each and every word. However for my second objective, when I received my feedback from Jireh and Isaiah, I was told that I was shuffling quite a bit and when I was on stage because I was concentrating on giving a good performance and remembering my lines. I didn’t tend to focus on my movement so I didn’t realise what I was doing with my feet.

The feedback I received was that I need to shuffle less, listen and react to my partner’s words and establish my authority in the play because I was told that I made my character seem like the master when I am the servant. Moreover, I was told that I needed to make the line ‘Ever since you loved her’ into a witty joke to portray Speed’s inner comedic jokes that he says to Valentine.

As each group had a different group to assess and give peer feedback to, the pair that I observed were Joseph and Grace who performed the play ‘Taming of the Shrew’ they played the characters of Petruchio and Katherine. Firstly, they each told the class their objectives and Joseph’s objectives were:
·         To learn lines
·         Confidently complete the scene
·         Make the scene in more of a conversation rather than a list

Grace’s objectives were:
·         Make the scene in more of a conversation rather than a list
·         A various amount of facial expressions
·         To learn lines

As they performed their scene, Josiah and I observed their performance. I observed that Joseph had good facial expressions and gestures throughout his performance. I thought that he had a very realistic and believable reaction when Grace kicked him. Lastly, coming up with the idea of using his ukulele whilst saying his monologue(s) was a fantastic idea because it made it very original and that really stood out. However, mixing music and his speech made it less clearer to hear him because he was speaking over the music so I think that if he rehearsed more on figuring out when to play a chord and when to talk that will help with understanding what he is saying.

Moreover, I observed that Grace also had great reactions to Joseph’s words and she stayed in character throughout the scene as did Joseph. There was a moment where she was quite slow on reacting to Joseph touching her on the arm and I think that there needs to be quite a rapid reaction from her. In addition, Grace didn’t have a big reaction when Joseph said ‘Then my remedy is to pluck it out’. I thought that she needed to show a much bigger reaction to when Joseph plucks her arm as he’s saying ‘pluck’. Lastly, I observed that some of the words Grace was saying were not clear because she was laughing as she was speaking which was good however; it wasn’t clear what she was saying. Overall, I thought the performance flowed really well and their objectives were achieved.

The Voice

The video ‘The Voice’ really gave a clear insight of how it is when an actor uses their voice and how they use it. I think the most helpful aspect of the video was being shown how your larynx opens and closes when you breathe and when you use your voice to speak. Also, the video showed me ways in which I can use my voice to portray different sounds without straining my voice.

Your larynx is the hollow muscular organ forming an air passage to the lungs and holding the vocal cords; the voice box. I learned that during quiet breathing, the vocal cords are near the sides of the larynx, and the glottis is open however, during speech, the vocal cords are stretched over the glottis and vibrate as air passes through them, producing the voice. The vocal cords are the folds of the connective tissue above the opening of the larynx that produce the voice.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona - Act 2 Scene 1

For my own knowledge I researched about the summary of The Two Gentlemen of Verona to get an overview of what the play is about. In addition, I researched the characters to have an understanding of who my character, Speed has a relationship with.

Characters:

• Speed – Valentine's clownish servant. He's quick-witted and has a habit of bagging on other characters in a way that reveals how foolish people can be.
• Valentine – A young gentleman from Verona that is Proteus’ BFF and the boyfriend of Silvia.
• Silvia – The daughter of the Duke of Milan and Valentine’s girlfriend. She is very bold and incredibly loyal.

Summary:

Speed finds a third glove that belongs to Silvia – the girl who Valentine has fallen in love with. Valentine is teased by Speed about his crush and says that Valentine's been moping around like a lovesick puppy: sighing, singing love songs, refusing to eat, and crying like a girl. Then Speed carries on insulting Valentine and Silvia by implying that Silvia is ugly but Valentine thinks she's beautiful. Silvia enters and Valentine showers her with compliments. Valentine is so blinded by her beauty and his love for her that he doesn’t realise Silvia refers to Valentine as her "servant" and treats him like one. Later, we find out that Silvia asked Valentine to write a love letter to an unnamed “friend” of Silvia’s however, Valentine doesn’t know that Silvia wants him to write it for her.  After she reads it she shoves it back at Valentine and tells him to try again but this time, the letter should be more passionate. Valentine is left confused after Silvia leaves him with the letter in his hand until Speed explains to him why Silvia is upset. 

The Language of Shakespeare

When I was first given a play of Shakespeare’s, my teacher took the time to go over everything line by line when we read it in class so we would understand it easier, but when it came to trying to figure a play out for myself all I learned was that Early Modern English hurt by brain. Moreover, now that I study Shakespeare in drama, my job as an actor is to study the history of Shakespeare and his plays in order to get an insight of what the language is like and what it means in modern day language. In addition, this means adapting to the language even though it’s quite hard to memorise when you don’t understand what you’re saying or what the play is about. It’s a real challenge that every aspiring actor should try as it intrigues agencies and makes you stand out.

After a time, Shakespeare can get quite boring because you’re repeating the same thing and not much excitement is happening whereas if you were to do a modern play you can play around with the emotions of characters and change the text.

‘A great deal of Shakespeare is “heightened language”. This generally means that heightened text is anything that is more poetic than a normal speech. The style of writing is drastically different from the way we speak today and it’s different from the way people spoke when the plays were written. Heightened language was meant to stand out as a different kind of language; it is more artsy than every day speech.

Preparation for Specialist Study

What skills have you developed since starting college?

Since starting college I have worked on my communication skills. As the days went by, I used the act of transferring information vocally (using voice) to be able to communicate with students in my class and introducing myself to new people I’ve met. In addition, as a class we have been working on our voice and being able to articulate words by repeating a few tongue twisters three times. One example of a tongue twister that we used would be, ‘She sells seashells by the seashore.’

We have also worked on our breathing exercises to help calm our nerves down before a performance. One of these exercises is breathing from your diaphragm; when you take a truly deep breath, you are expanding the lungs, pressing down the diaphragm, and causing your abdomen to expand as your lungs fill with air. Breathing from the diaphragm is going to give you a deeper, fuller breath.  If you’re acting in an emotional scene, you’re going to need as much air possible. This is very important.

I have developed my communication skill memorisation and reading. This is really important for any actor as you need to be able to read scripts and memorise your lines. In order to memorise my lines, I usually read the first 5 lines on my script once and then close my eyes and try and remember them, if I know I can remember them I get the next 5 lines and I do the same, then I try and remember my lines from the beginning and up to where I think I know them. Also, doing this for at least 30 minutes – 1 hour really helps with remembering lines; testing yourself after a few hours tests your brain.