2nd Show

Going into our second performance of “Our Country’s Good” a week later I felt that there was a very different energy amongst the company. I feel that this was a result of it being untouched for a week since the last performance, so it felt old and not worked and fresh. I think this made me worried that mistakes would be made and that we wouldn’t be as in the moment of the situations and the characters. Also we didn’t have the adrenaline of going into the first public performance with the big run up to the show and all the rehearsals and preparation for it. As an actor I feel that this pushed me further into working out how I personally get into a character and how I sustain the energy outside of rehearsals. I think this is important because it teaches us how in the industry we can continue to work on our characters and to make each performance new and fresh without the need for constant rehearsals in between shows.

In this show, us the company, found that we had to work extra hard to create the energy on stage and to be able to drive the performance. To do this we had a really intense warm up not only to engage our bodies technically and to get into our characters and the given circumstances of the play. It was really important for us to vocally and physically warm up because our play is centred on words and the acting. By doing a detailed warm up we allowed ourselves to be ready to be able to tell the story clearly and to vocally connect to our characters. It was also crucial that we had time to reengage with our characters and to get to know them physically not just generally but to pick up and explore all the details again.

As a result of our show being at a different time than last week it had a different audience which made the feeling of the performance difference, not a worst or better but different. I feel that this is because each audience member is different and takes something different away from  the piece, consequently the audience as whole will connect to different moments for example will laugh in different sections. This showed me that each performance can be changed and made different not only by the actors but by the audience as well and that it is important to listen and connect to the audience as well as the other actors to be able to create a fresh performance, constantly making new discoveries.