Evaluation!

I thought our final performance was out best run-through yet! The energy was the highest it had ever been and you could tell everyone was very high on adrenaline which gave the performance that edge that we needed. Everyone was focused throughout and no one stepped out of character. I thought the changeovers were slick and the characterisation was excellent. Little things that certain people did to bring their character to life really made the whole piece so believable and entertaining.

I was very pleased with my monologue because I felt flowed naturally and I stayed in character mentally the whole time. In my head I just thought about my relationship with Phil and what I wanted to get out of saying all of this to him which resulted in me not over-thinking what I was saying and how it sounded. It was the first time I completely forgot where I was and it just felt it was me and Phil alone. I felt that my relationship with Phil (Chem) came across well because of the subtle eye-contact and physical contact we had in scenes. In the group scene I felt that the audience could feel a sense of Phil's dominance over Leah and Leah's desperation which is what I wanted to achieve.

One of the actor's that really stood out for me was Ben (Mark). His monologue was incredibly effective for many reasons. His facial expressions showed a deeper layer to what he was saying because it gave an insight into what he was really thinking which made his performance very convincing as well as upsetting. His body language changed from being fairly open and relaxed to being on his knees and tense as he explained what had happened to Adam. This made the audience feel on-edge and gripped because of the raw emotion that was being showed through his body as well as his facial expressions. It was also so natural because of the pauses he took and the pace variation - he sped up when it was a climax and slowed down just before he said critical words. Overall he was very convincing and had developed a completely believable character.

I think the set was a crucial factor in making our piece so successful. It was so simplistic yet had a story behind it. Personally, I thought that the swing represented a sense innocence and childhood which contradicted the storyline in a very eerie way. It proved that less is more because of how easy it was to imagine the rest of the environment even though we just had a bench and a swing. I thought it was really effective for us to all be in uniform. Again, it made you realise how young all the characters were and that they were all part of a group. It also made all the characters on an equal level which made characterisation even more important. Daniel's costume was shocking and authentic, with dirt covering his white shirt and scratches down his arms - it made him seem like even more of an outsider. I thought the music at the beginning was very effective because although it was fairly upbeat, the lyrics were dark and quite depressing. This reflected the whole piece in a way - everyone tried to put on this upbeat act but if you looked deeper everything was falling apart. I thought the music in-between scenes kept everyone on-edge and had an exciting sense to it to keep the audience intrigued and entertained. I thought the props were also very useful because they were all used in a very effective way and made the piece even more believable.

I think the performance had many different strengths but predominantly I thought how effectively we worked as an ensemble really made the piece successful. In most scenes all the characters bounced off each other with their lines and it was clear of what relationship they each had with each other by subtle facial expressions or body language. We were all so engrossed in the story that if someone missed their que or said a line slightly wrong it wouldn't matter because we were all so in the moment. This resulted in the piece being realistic and entertaining to watch. I also thought the majority of the cast had developed their characters so well that there were interesting contrasts which made our piece strong. Everyone was so individual even though people were playing the same character and everyone took a different look on their particular character.

I think everyone could have developed their characters even more. Subtle traits for each character could have been more obvious and I think if we all developed the background of our character then it would of shone through in our performance resulting in each and every actor having a memorable individual character. Overall though, I think everyone did an amazing job and it could not have gone better!