Everyday, after we had finished The Workshop. I spent time practising the physicality of the different Commedia characters in front of a mirror, in order to make sure that I was making the correct movements. Whenever I had free time, I wrote my lines and cue lines in my notebook and I practised the lines at home- though I would have benefited more, If I had someone to read against, as this is my usual method of rehearsing.
Gertrude/ La Signora is probably the most vocally demanding role that I have played as of yet. This is most likely due to the European accent I used for this character. In order to sound louder, I had to engage my diaphragm while speaking, to avoid hurting my throat. This version of Gertrude was a very feminine, seductive, selfish and strong woman, who never cared about her son Hamlet, or anyone other than herself. When ever I walked, I had to swing my hips from side to side and my hands were up to my head, moving freely head or holding my dress. I had to pout, growl at people and narrow my eyes to show Gertrude's sexy side. Whenever I cried or had to appear shocked, I made sure that I did this in a melodramatic way.
During The Matinee, I felt that I was flat (lacked energy), I threw away a lot of the comedy by rushing through my lines and staying on the same level (regarding pitch, volume, and how dramatically I delivered the lines). Most of my lines didn't seem as though they were being acted, but instead they were spoken as though I was reading them monotonously. It was the first time I had performed in my costume. I realised that at times, I would have to change my physicality, in order to hold my dress to avoid tripping up on it and to stop it from falling down. However, I made hardly any mistakes and I managed to stay in character throughout the show.
In The Evening Performance, my energy increased majorly, I tried to push through my limited vocal ability and I remembered to slow down a little, which I found gained my character more laughs. I made a few more mistakes, but I was more spontaneous with my actions and so I felt that I delivered an over all better performance than in The Matinee. On the other hand, I have still performed a lot better in the past and I felt that I did not deliver as good a performance as I could have. I still faced some of the problems that I had in the earlier show, including the way in which I delivered the lines (flatly and as though not acted, but read) and the way that I dealt with my dress.
Gertrude/ La Signora is probably the most vocally demanding role that I have played as of yet. This is most likely due to the European accent I used for this character. In order to sound louder, I had to engage my diaphragm while speaking, to avoid hurting my throat. This version of Gertrude was a very feminine, seductive, selfish and strong woman, who never cared about her son Hamlet, or anyone other than herself. When ever I walked, I had to swing my hips from side to side and my hands were up to my head, moving freely head or holding my dress. I had to pout, growl at people and narrow my eyes to show Gertrude's sexy side. Whenever I cried or had to appear shocked, I made sure that I did this in a melodramatic way.
During The Matinee, I felt that I was flat (lacked energy), I threw away a lot of the comedy by rushing through my lines and staying on the same level (regarding pitch, volume, and how dramatically I delivered the lines). Most of my lines didn't seem as though they were being acted, but instead they were spoken as though I was reading them monotonously. It was the first time I had performed in my costume. I realised that at times, I would have to change my physicality, in order to hold my dress to avoid tripping up on it and to stop it from falling down. However, I made hardly any mistakes and I managed to stay in character throughout the show.
In The Evening Performance, my energy increased majorly, I tried to push through my limited vocal ability and I remembered to slow down a little, which I found gained my character more laughs. I made a few more mistakes, but I was more spontaneous with my actions and so I felt that I delivered an over all better performance than in The Matinee. On the other hand, I have still performed a lot better in the past and I felt that I did not deliver as good a performance as I could have. I still faced some of the problems that I had in the earlier show, including the way in which I delivered the lines (flatly and as though not acted, but read) and the way that I dealt with my dress.
My strengths were; my ability to apply the technique for playing each character when necessary, my mask technique (as I remembered to clock the audience most of the time) and my comedic improvisation skills, which seemed to get me laughs nearly every time I was told to improvise. One of my biggest strengths is the diverse range of accents I can use, which is a particularly good thing for Commedia. I managed to make use of my Jamaican accent, posh English accent, cockney accent and various different European accents, including Spanish.
My weaknesses were my restricted vocal ability by the time of the performance, my over rehearsing of my lines (which made it sound like I was reading some lines straight from the script, rather than acting them), my staying on the same level when reading lines and my rushing through my lines, which often caused me to loose my comedy timing. However, one of my greatest weaknesses was my lack of consistently. At first I read the lines exactly as I felt that they should have been spoken, but later I began to over think my approach to each line. At the beginning of the week, I came up with gags that were a lot funnier than those which I used in the play, so I probably should have incorporated them into it. I felt that this was definitely not one of my best performances and that I should have realised earlier that sometimes being spontaneous is funnier than when you practise the lines over and over again.
In conclusion, I feel that I could have performed a lot better in this play. In the future, I will learn from these mistakes and I will use them to improve on my performances. I have definitely improved on my physicality (especially the physicality of feminine characters, as I learnt a lot about how they move when playing La Signora/ Gertrude). I feel more confident with my improvisation skills and I also learnt a lot about stage combat, which I could definitely make use of in the future. It was very interesting to learnt about Commedia Dell' Arte, as I now know the origins of some types of theatre and I can especially adopt some the physicality of the different characters in order to portray other characters.
Here is a montage of the play:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7XWymMBrcw
Here is a video of the play:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7lV7pkzWlo
