Electra Performance Evaluation

Electra Performance Evaluation

As my role was double cast the first 2 shows I was back stage in charge of the smoke machine. I was therefore back stage with the script making sure I knew when the start of the acts were to press the button for the smoke. Even though I wasn't able to watch the 2 performances of the show that I wasn't in I was still following the scirpt and could hear what was going on. The mistakes that happened on the first night was that Niamh cut out a page and a half of dialogue and cut of Magic's (Old man) big monologue. The girls who played the Chorus friends managed to think on their feet and jumped to their lines that followed the bit where Niamh jumped to and was able to carry on. As a cast we know what should have happened and that it was a big mistake however I spoke to an audience member and they could tell there was a bit of a silence and a pause however they didn't realize that a lot had been cut and that it all still made sense. They said that as it was in old language you they were able to get away with it easier than it would have been if it was in modern language as it is sometimes hard to follow old language. On a whole the first show apart from the miss hap in the middle wasn't too bad and in comparison to the last rehearsal before show week it was a big improvement.

The next show again I was backstage as Niamh was Clytemnestra again, she managed to remember more of her lines this time and I didn't notice many mistakes so from what I could hear the show went well.

The next performance it was then my time to play Clytemnestra. I feel that come show week I was extremely confident with my lines and knew how I wanted to portray the character. I feel I was able to tackle the language well after spending time to understand the meaning of the text so that when i said my lines in my performance I wasn't just saying the lines, I was saying them with a purpose and a meaning. I felt vocally I was quite strong and I managed to hold my character and my high status above other characters - especially Electra.
I felt I spoke clearly and with good projection. Movement wise I felt that I walked and had a strong held posture and stood with a powerful stance and status. What i felt went really well was the argument that Electra and myself had, it was very strong and powerful and I felt that we both really let ourselves go with it. After the show Rachel gave us notes and said that myself and Catrina could go even further in our argument and reach and either higher point so I ensure that I would do that for my final performance the next day.
Things that could have gone better is use more gestures and expression to make my performance more expressive.

The final performance I felt went really well. We had a large audience so that was great to have a lot of support and a large audience to perform to especially as we had audience members on the side of the stage so it was good to be able to have the chance of having more audience members to fill up the side seats to perform to. I felt mine and Catrina's argument was even stronger in this performance and that it went to a higher extreme of anger and emotions. I feel that my intentions of the character came though in my performance. My intentions being that I wanted to show that Clytemnestra was a very powerful woman with a high status, I also wanted her just by her presence enough that I had a high status. When I spoke I wanted to have a harsh tone to my voice which I feel I was able to hold throughout my scenes. I also wanted to show  my emotions that I had killed my husband as an act of revenge but was very fearful that Orestes would come back and take his revenge on me. I also wanted to show that I was genuinely upset he was dead as he was my child after all however I wanted to come across my different sides to me as i had quite a split personality and was starting to show these different thoughts and feelings all coming through. I believe I portrayed this through my performance as one minute I was shouting the next I had a MP face and manner speaking to the audience and then I was showing concern over Orestes so I wanted to show that my character was muddled up and had such a mixed up mind.

The way in which the play was staged and performed originally in comparison to our performance was that we had only 3 sides to the audience whereas in an original Greek theatre there would be people seated all around the stage. Another difference would be that in the Greek theatre they would have performed with masks as the theaters were so large facial expressions would have been lost so they used masks which we did not use although we did do a work shop with masks. Food would have been thrown in an original Greek theatre which as we know this didn't happen in our performance. Seen in both our performance and original Greek we both used music from our time to create more interest to our performance. Music and dance was seen in original Greek theatre. We didn't use dance as such but the chorus members - friends of Electra - did use some movement in a physical theatre style which is very modern and complies to our day and age of performance. In the Greek times going to the theatre and watching plays was a form of entertainment and you could watch performances for free, now you are charged for tickets and for merchandise and food and drinks so now it has become a business rather than something nice to just do. That then compares to our performance as we did charge money for tickets.
in conclusion although Greek theatre has similarities to modern day theatre the difference do out weigh the similarities because of the technology and special effects that there are now and also the people that are allowed to take part of in plays now as only men were allowed to perform and now in our day and age women are highly respected and recognised in the performance industry.