When we began rehearsing 'The Most Horrific' we first began with splitting up into two groups. There was the 'A and B' group and there was the 'C and D' group. I was put into the 'C and D' group. Our first task was to separate the lines evenly. To do that we sat in a circle, as we went round the circle we each would say three lines and those three lines would be our lines for the actual performance. When it came to me, it was at a C line. The group noticed that the character C had very few lines so it ended up with just me and Billy being the character C with the other 10 or so sharing out the D parts. Although us sharing the C parts it seemed that I had the bulk of the lines for character C, I asked Billy if he wanted some of mine but he seemed alright with it being like that. It ended up like this because a lot of the lines for C seemed to be repeated, so it would make more sense for me to repeat them also, kind of like a catch phrase or something like that. For example, one of the lines was, 'All Bankers Are Cunts' which was a prominent line throughout the piece.
After we had distributed the lines, we jumped straight into a run through. At this stage, we were just trying to play around with the lines and see what we could come up with, because half the play was allowed to be devised. So now and then we would have the A and Bs interrupt us and say something irrelevant like, 'who wants sushi?' This was quite a good exercise because it helped us establish to the audience what type of character we all were. Without going too far that the audience doesn't grow a bond with anyone but it could add satirical techniques to the piece. Comedy can be very useful for political awareness in my opinion, so I feel this was quite helpful to put our message across.
We needed to show that the idea behind our
production is that C and D are pitching ideas for TV/entertainment projects to
A and B who are disinterested media executives who have a superficial interest
in contemporary news stories which they discuss languidly and with no detail or
genuine engagement or understanding. So when it came to the actual performance we realised that the Cs and Ds needed to act at a 'seven' and that the As and Bs needed to act at a 'ten'. If we were able to keep up the energy the whole way through then we would've completed our objective.
In the actual performance, I feel as if I did well and I portrayed my character well. Because my character had a contrast in the group, I feel it may have been harder for me to show that because I was heavily outnumbered but I believe that I did myself justice because I think I showed that. I feel as if in the performance I definitely kept my energy up to a 'seven' which we were suppose to do and that my strongest point was delivering my line. My character had a catch phrase in the play which I needed to perfect to get the right reaction from not just the audience, the actors around me. I feel as if as a group, we all performed brilliantly and that we helped each other out when needed.
In my opinion, the As and Bs had a stronger performance than the Cs and Ds, I feel as if in the rehearsals the Cs and Ds would outdo the As and Bs because the As and Bs were often too quiet and had a lot less energy. But in the performance I feel as if the Ds suddenly lost their energy and it became very stiff. One section where Rhianne explains the Ugandan Lesbian story, the Ds reaction is usually very strong and clear but during the performance it lacked a lot of energy. On the other hand, there is a section where the As and Bs lean forward when they hear the words 'Terrorist' and lean back when it wasn't about terrorists. Usually, the As and Bs will be out of synch or low energy but in the performance it was tight and well synchronized and included a lot of energy.
Overall, I think the performance went well, I believe that Ds could have had a lot more energy but I don't think it was noticeable unless you knew what was meant to happen, plus the As and Bs leveled the playing field as well because they really brought it in the performance I think.
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