Plague in Eyam Evaluation
1. Explain your choices for physicality of the character in your performance.
I thought about how my character stood on stage and I came up with a few stances. The first one I came up was where I stood up straight with my shoulders back with my hands together. The second one is where I have my hands behind my back. I wanted to make sure that my character looked and moved like a priest. I even worked on my walk, it was a little slow and made me look more religious and priest-like. I thought about these things so that I looked more like a real priest in terms of physicality as well as how I’m using my voice, etc. I tried to make my character seam as real as possible from the audience’s perspective. I wanted to be as close as I could in every aspect. This meant I wasn’t putting too much of myself into the performance; after all, I’m meant to be playing someone completely different rather than playing myself. In addition, I always made sure that I wasn't blocking anybody and was stood in a good position so that the audience could always see my face and I never had my back to the audience. I was very good at doing this and I wasn’t aware of any time where I was blocking anybody or not showing my face to the audience. Although, personally, I think that I need to think more about how I’m using the space on stage. I have a tendency to stand quite still on stage, sometimes I think a little too still. As if I was glued to the floor. I need to experiment more with my physicality and use all of the space so that my performance is more dramatic. I’m also still getting used to how and where to stand on stage because it is very different to how you would in real life. I have to remember not to stand in a line with people all the time because that makes it look a little ugly. But I also need to remember to stand a slightly bigger distance away from people at times so that I’m using all the space and not being bundled up too close to other people.
Furthermore, I personally feel that I’m not using enough gesture when I speak. Sometimes I personally feel like I’m stood there like a plant not doing anything with my body. I feel I need to do a bit more. I did continue to reuse the same standing position throughout the performance. I could have come up with a different one so I wasn’t standing the same way all the time. I felt I was too still at times. For example, I could use more gesture when I’m trying to exaggerate a certain point. I felt a little diffident in terms of gesture. I held back a little bit because I didn’t feel confident enough to on stage because I kept thinking that I would end up using too much gesture at times. I need to practice more with using gesture on stage and get my peers to give me some constructive criticism and feedback regarding my physical performance. That way, I know how I should be improving rather than only listening to what I’m thinking about my physical performance. I get an outside perspective.
In fine, these are the things that I would improve in terms of this performance if I did it again. But, ultimately, I will think more about these things for all of my future performances, either way. I am always looking for ways to improve my performance, even if all I get is positive feedback. I will think more about how I’m standing on stage in terms of position as well as how I’m using my body. I will think of some more ‘idle’ standing positions as well as thinking more about how I’m using gestures in my performance.
2. Explain your choices for your vocal performances.
Firstly, I decided that my character should be fairly well-spoken. My character, William Mompesson, had been to Cambridge University and was a very literate person. Reading his letter that he wrote to his children upon the death of Catherine, it was made very clear to me that he had a very good understanding of the English language. In a few ways, it reminded me of Shakespeare’s writing. There are many examples through his letter that show this to me, I will pick two of them out. The first is, “dear children, your dearest mother lived a holy life and made a comfortable end, though by means of the sore pestilence, and she is now invested with a crown of righteousness.” The second is, “upon being seized, she showed much contrition for the errors of her life.” It is evident he understood the English language very well and could construct some complicated and sophisticated sentences. In those times, it wasn’t common to see a lot of people who had such a good understanding of the English language, never mind someone who had been to Cambridge University. This pushed me to reach the conclusion that he was a well-spoken and very educated priest. But in addition, I also came to the conclusion that he isn’t necessarily speaking in a ‘posh’ kind of accent. He was exposed to a lot of common people rather than the upper classes of big cities like London. I understood that when people spend a lot of time exposed to certain accents, they start to take that on themselves. So I thought that his well-spoken would be a little bit less on the ‘posh’ side and a little closer to the ‘commonness’ of the people. He is well-spoken but it isn’t spoken in a snobbish or posh kind of way.
Moreover, I thought more about my vocal performance in other aspects than the accent. I went over and through my script looking at points where to add emphasis and dramatic pauses. I marked pauses with a slash where the pause should be. And in terms of dramatic emphasis I also thought more about certain words that I would not only emphasise, but I would elongate. I would underline the word that I would want to put emphasis on and I would write an ‘e’ for ‘general’ emphasis or I would write an ‘el’ for elongation of that word. Then, as I was learning my script, I would also go over these additions to my lines as well as using the well-spoken accent. As the play progresses, I decided that there should be a noticeable and big change in how my character acts. At the start, he would be nice and friendly and completely oblivious to the disease that had cursed their village. Then as the play progresses and he realises that the danger is bigger than he thought, he turns stronger and takes more action. He is less friendly in a way, less oblivious. Finally, as soon as Catherine is struck by the plague, he changes even more. He is incredibly saddened by the fact that Catherine had been struck by the plague and he starts to ‘lose himself’ a little bit and is a little less strong. He is a lot sadder predominantly. I think I showed this well, but I would improve this area if I did it again and make it a little bigger and more obvious to the audience that he is changing.
Additionally, I was more confident in this performance than I was in my previous performances. This, in turn, meant that I was more confident in using my voice more and projection. In example, I used my voice more to depict the tone that I was speaking in. I was using my voice more and changing the tone depending on what my character was feeling in that moment and what their intentions for that scene were. In particular, the scenes where I had to be sad because Catherine (William’s wife) had been struck with the plague. I had to show that in my voice and my face. I think I did this well but I also feel this is another place that I need to improve my performance. I feel that I didn’t make it big enough and I need to show it even more in my voice. I felt it was a little too small and I needed to show it a little bit more in my performance. This is what I’m going to improve over my next performances in, and outside, of college.
3. Explain your role throughout the whole rehearsal process.
First and foremost, I’ve been very professional and hard-working in all of the rehearsals. I haven’t turned up to any of the rehearsals late and I haven’t missed a single rehearsal. I have been very dedicated and passionate in the rehearsal process. I have come up with some very good ideas for the performance in general, as well as my character and other people’s characters. I helped write a lot of the script with another script writer, Victoria. There were contributions by many other members of the group, but we wrote most of the scenes and made sure that everybody, including the directors and actors, were happy with what we wrote as we went along. The script was completed in good time and it was printed and finalised with enough time for actors to learn their lines and practice the scenes in the rehearsals. A lot of time was spent writing the script. Personally, I had spent about 27 hours on the script. With the other script writer and the contributions made, I would estimate in total there were about 60 hours spent on the script in total.
After the script was finished, we all started to work a bit more on the actual scenes and practising and blocking them. During this time, I was working on my character and learning my lines. But also, we were also discussing even more ideas that we could do in the performance as well as some small alterations we could make to the script to make it better. But, in terms of actual rehearsal, there were times where people could have been a lot more professional and less distracting for other people. There were even times when both of the directors themselves were falling prey to being distracted and this, at times, made me quite angry and annoyed at people. I have to say, honestly, that there were a couple of times where I had to bring people back to the performance, even if I had to raise my voice in the process. I had to make people realise that we don’t have as much time as they thought they did so we could just get on with the rehearsals for the scenes.
Furthermore, there was one time where one of the directors couldn’t come in to rehearsals and the other director was working with the dancers and singers, so I personally stepped up for that day to lead people in the acting rehearsals. In that time, we did manage to get some good blocking done from my ideas as well as other people’s ideas so we all had a say in what was happening. A couple of the ideas I came up with that day for the blocking were used in the final performance, including the entrance of the Plague Doctor and the idea for what I called a ‘quick-fire’ crowd moment. This is where all the crowd at the meeting were talking loudly among themselves in a disoriented fashion. Then, when their line came, they would shout their line over all the noise so it was louder and the audience could hear them. There was only one other scene I helped to block and that was the one where both of the directors were in the scene so I helped to block that from my point of view as an audience member. Neither of the directors objected and they liked and took on the ideas for the scene in the final performance. In that scene, I suggested that they should all stand a good distance apart and use all the space around the stage so they aren’t just standing still all the time.
Other than the occasional blip, we did get a lot done in the rehearsals. Every rehearsal we went over the scenes that we all needed to go over as actors. We normally did a different scene every rehearsal unless we needed to go over a scene again. This left us with enough time to go over all of the scenes and the entire script.
In rehearsals, I was an actor as well as script writer. But also, I was also part of props and set. So I would help the other members of the props and set group decide how we were going to work the set out as well as finding all the props we needed. The tech work for this was done in time and a couple of weeks before the final performance. We all knew what the sets were going to look like and there were no more props that needed to be found. Other than that, I was working as an actor and trying to improve my performance as best I could through every rehearsal as well as giving other actors some constructive criticism about their own performances at times as well. And, as script writer, after the script was finished I talked with the directors about how the scenes were intended to be done and interpreted on stage and got my say. Ultimately, I respected their opinion even if it wasn’t the outcome that I wanted. Throughout all the rehearsals, I helped the directors a lot by giving them some suggestions and feedback about what we could do in my opinion; I didn’t take any control, however. It was their decision in the end.
4. If you were to take part in this process again, what would you do differently?
There were a couple of instances, during the script writing process, where we didn’t quite work together very well because we had different ideas. If I were to do it again with another person then I would make sure to work better together with the other script writer. At times, we both had different ideas and wrote differently and when we both had looked at what we had written, we had changed quite a few things with each other’s script and didn’t fully like what each other had done. This had caused a couple of arguments between us all. We needed to work a little more closely together. If we are going to write separate scenes then we need to send them to each other and make any changes that we want but not take it personally. We both have to realise that we can’t have everything our own way and not take any of it the wrong way and understand it is to better improve the script as a whole. Or, another method, is to work together in person and write a scene together. We had done this once or twice already, but I feel this method worked best with us both so we should have used that method more. We work very differently from each other so that means it can be, sometimes, very difficult to work with each other. I, for example, am a person who likes to change every small detail in a script until I am satisfied with everything including how every single sentence is worded. I like to find the best way to do something, focussing on very small details. But, the other script writer was a type of person to write a little faster by just putting their ideas on the page rather than focussing too much on the actual wording of the sentences themselves. So, when they sent me their work, I would tend to go over their sentences and find the best way to word them. They would, as a result, take it a little personal at times. So this is where we both needed to work much closely together as script writers and both realise that we need not to take any changes personally.
5. How did you interact with your audience?
In my performance, I didn’t break the fourth wall. The only times where I had interacted with the audience was when I was making eye contact with the audience members. Normally, I would look just above the audience or not at anyone in particular but I had gained enough confidence to actually look at a few people and make eye contact with them. For example, in the second scene where Mort tells the village that London had been struck with a curse, I try to calm the crowd down and get them to stop panicking. In this part, I talked to the audience as if they were the crowd and I was trying to calm them down. I looked all across the audience and even at the empty seats as if there was someone sat there as if they were crowd members. Finally, in my soliloquy, taken from Shakespeare, I looked at the audience while I was performing the soliloquy. These were the only times where I had interacted with my audience. I only looked at the audience and made eye-contact with them.
6. What did you want your audience to feel/react like in your performance?
The goals for this performance was to educate people about the plague but also make people feel emotional about what happened. Our intentions were to try and make the audience cry if we could or at the very least feel emotional about what was happening on stage. I know that we did, in fact, achieve this goal. I did see in the audience that some people were feeling a bit emotional and I did actually see one or two people crying a little bit. Their reactions that I saw while I was on stage as well as the comments that they gave us prove that we did achieve our goals in making the audience feel sad and emotional. The script we had written for the performance we were all confident that it was emotional as well as interesting for the audience. One comment we had was, “the story was compelling and the script was engaging.” We received many comments suggesting that the performance was emotional. One of them was, “the poem was well delivered and emotional,” and another was, “portrayal of characters made it very emotional,” and, “it was a very emotive subject.” Many more comments suggested this as well, “people losing their loved ones was very sad,” and, “the sad moments where people died were effective,” and finally, “moved by the tragic events of history.” These various comments makes it very obvious that the audience found the performance very emotional due to the nature of the topic as well as the portrayal of the characters and the script on stage. We had succeeded in our goal to make the audience feel emotional.
But we also wanted to teach the audience a few things about the plague, we received one comment saying, “they all learned something about the plague.” There was some artistic license in there and some things that weren’t necessarily true. But we got a lot of real life facts in there and came up with a good story based on the Eyam story out of it.
7. How did you show your focus and concentration on stage? Do you think you focussed well?
I was very focussed and concentrated on stage. I focussed very well because I never lost character while I was on stage and never got distracted by what was going on in the audience. In the first performance, during my soliloquy there were a couple of points where one or two people said something in the audience and made a noise from what I thought was them trying to distract me from doing my monologue. Despite that, I just carried on exactly as I was as if nothing had happened. Whether it was on purpose to distract me or not, it failed to distract me from my performance. And, in the second performance, I did see a couple of lights in the audience from people taking pictures. I did notice it but it didn’t distract me from my performance, I just carried on anyway.
8. What did the audience think about your own performance?
I received a lot of good comments from the audience in respect to my own performance. The first one I received was, “spoke very clearly and projected well,” as well as, “very good projection of voice.” This shows I have improved my projection and articulation skills. In the performance, projection came naturally to me and I didn’t have to think about it, I just did it. This shows that I’m projecting enough naturally on stage now. Whereas, in previous performances I didn’t project quite as well. Secondly, I received the comment, “strong stage presence.” This means that I stood out while performing on stage. A strong presence means that you stand out in front of other people. This shows that I had a strong performance in the eyes of the person who wrote that comment. I agree I may have had a strong presence, but that doesn’t imply that any other actors were weak. They were all very good. Next, I got a comment saying, “very moving and real performance. A powerful performance,” and, “showed emotions well.” These two comments link in with each other. They both suggest that I portrayed my character well and got across the emotions that I was trying to get across. They suggest that I portrayed the sadness and emotional feelings that William was feeling while I was on stage. These are my favourite comments simply because they suggest that I was good at portraying emotions along with the fact that I saw people in the audience feeling emotional. I was very happy with myself that I could get people in the audience to cry as well as the fact that I could portray strong emotions of sadness on stage. It isn’t something I’ve ever done before on stage, so I did a very good job for my first time. So I am definitely happy with those comments. They also said, “read letter and quote beautifully.” This means they liked the idea of adding the letter into the performance as well as putting my own little spin into my performance and doing the famous “to be or not to be...” speech from Hamlet. The next comment I received links in with the previous ones but in a different way, “really got into the role of the character.” This suggests to the audience that I portrayed my character well and that I was portraying them in a way that made the audience feel I was a real and believable character. This was something that I continuously thought that I should be doing in rehearsals and I’m happy to receive this comment saying that I did just that. The final comment I received was, “on cue with script. Kept things moving.” There were times during the performance where people had gotten lost with their lines or I had gotten lost with mine and we all had to improvise. At one point I got mixed up with my lines with Catherine and as a result the actor playing her couldn’t say her next bit because I didn’t say the cue she needed. I realised that they needed a cue, so I improvised a bit but then said the cue that she needed so we could get things back on track. There was only a little bit of hesitation in that scene so mostly the audience may not have noticed parts of it were improvised. There was a bigger part later on where we all had to improvise a little bit and that was the meeting scene. The actor playing Mort in the previous scene had to very quickly get changed and run up the stairs to his entrance while we were talking on stage. He entered very early on, so we had to string it out a bit and improvise a little to give him time to get ready. Improvising at this point was hard because we all have to work together as actors and we all couldn’t think of a good place to go with the improvisation. So it went a little wrong until I said the Plague Doctor’s cue to come in. Then later in that scene there was a little silence, so I took the initiative to move things forward and go to my next line to get things back on track. Mostly, we all improvised well.
Finally, I didn’t receive any bad comments for my performance. Although this suggests I did a very good job with my performance I also like to receive points where I can improve my performance further. I’m always looking for places to improve. My performance wasn’t perfect, but I know personally where I need to improve so that’s enough for me.
9. What did the audience think about the whole performance?
Overall, the audience thoroughly enjoyed the performance. There were a few points that they feel we needed to improve on but mostly we got a good reception. In terms of the plot and script, they had this to say, “the story was compelling and the script was engaging.” From a script writer’s point of view this is a good opinion to receive in my opinion and I’m happy that the script I helped write with the other writer and contributors has entertained the audience and they liked it. Although, there are parts in the script I’m not entirely satisfied with, even bits I’ve written myself. As a perfectionist, I’m always criticising my own work. But the actors enjoyed working with it and the audience enjoyed watching with it, so I’m happy with it. We also received another comment to do with the script, “the narrative of the Grandma was effective.” The audience liked this idea to have the Grandma telling the story. I wasn’t too sure on this idea personally but we all decided to do it like that in the end and it worked out well. But one comment said, “add more narration to the story.” This means that we could have added some more narration to explain what was going on a bit more. But this could bloat it too much, it separates audience opinion this comment. Adding more might be too much for some. So it’s something to discuss if we ever do it again.
In terms of costume they said, “costumes depicted the time.” This is a very good comment because the people who were working and sorting out the costume were trying to find exactly the right costume that was accurate to the time. They all did a very good job in my opinion as well as the audience’s opinion.
An improvement since the last performance is the transitions between all the scenes. We got feedback saying they, “liked the transitions between the scenes.” In the last performance it was a little bit of a mess because there was so much that we had to move and sometimes we didn’t know who had to move what. This time it was an improvement because we knew who had to move what mostly so it was nice and smooth. Also, the sets were quite minimal so that meant it was easier because there isn’t very much to move. This made the stage look nicer and also easier to set up. They said that they, “liked the staging,” so the audience liked our sets.
Moreover, they liked the projections that we used and the music that we used for the dances and the transitions, “liked the video and sound effects,” and, “the music was creepy,” and, “music for the dance was effective.” We clearly made some good choices with the music and projections. They added to the overall effectiveness of the performance.
The audience also liked the dances. They said, “the dances were effective,” and, “the timing for the dances were good.” This means that the unification of acting and dancing was quite effective and the audience enjoyed watching it. Despite us actors and dancers working separately most of the time, we did a good job at fitting the two together. We all did a very good job overall.
Some final comments from the audience were, “high standard all round,” and, “very powerful performance,” and, “Catherine’s death was effective,” and, “well done everyone,” and, “good at remembering lines,” and, “everyone seems to have grown in confidence. Learned their lines well.”
10. What elements in the performance worked well? Why?
There were many aspects of the performance that the audience enjoyed. They mostly enjoyed the performance except for a few small problems overall. All the things I have described above in the feedback shows that they obviously enjoyed a lot of the performance. There were very few negative comments. The only big negative comment we received was during the first performance, “talking off-stage put the audience off. Too much noise, so they found it hard to listen.” For the second performance we changed this and we were much quieter so it was overall a much better experience for the audience. The second negative comment we received was, “lighter on your feet at times.” This must refer to some of the dancers and a couple of the actors. Heavy feet on the stage generally makes a lot of noise and it can put the audience off sometimes. It can be quite distracting. So this is something for us all to work on.
Everything else in the performance seems to have worked out and the audience enjoyed it. They even liked my own little spin on my character when I came up with the idea to add the “to be or not to be...” speech from Hamlet in there. It was something I was learning in my own time for fun and then one day I had the idea to put it into the performance because I realised the meanings of the words and saw how they could easily fit into the performance. So I decided that I would do most of the soliloquy, cutting bits out that were irrelevant. I performed that very well and didn’t forget any of my lines. It added to the performance as a whole and made it more enjoyable for the audience.
Additionally, they also liked the ‘spiritual’ part of the performance because there were no complaints saying they didn’t like it or they didn’t understand it. This was something we spent some time debating whether to do in rehearsals. We finally made the decision to do it. I warned that if too much was used then the emotional impact would probably be lost in the performance. But it seemed to work very well and the audience enjoyed watching it. So it turned out to be a very good idea for the performance. Originally, it was one of the director’s ideas that we decided we would finally write into the script. So we got many of our ideas for the performance from other people. Everybody got their say and the audience enjoyed the final result. So it all worked very well for them.
11. What could you improve on?
Personally, I am going to continue to work more on my voice. For the next few performances I do in, and outside, of college I am going to try and do a different accent. Like a foreign accent or an accent from a certain area like a Yorkshire accent. I am going to challenge myself to doing accents because they are hard to do and keep consistent throughout the whole performance.
On top of that, I am going to work more on my physical performance. I am going to work more on how I stand and move around the stage. As well as that I’m going to work more on using gesture in my performances as well as making my facial expressions a bit bigger sometimes. Finally, I need to work more on portraying emotion on stage like sadness. It is a very hard thing to portray on stage so I am going to practice more at doing that.
As I get more confident, all of these things will come and I will improve all of my other aspects of acting and generally become a better actor.
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