Final Performance Evaluation

The show in general was extremely successful and I feel that the majority of the cast members put a lot of effort into their characters and their performances. One of the aspects I feel we improved greatly on in our last couple of rehearsals as a collective group was our pace in different scenes, this was extremely apparent in our final performance, as we managed to get the show done a lot quicker than we had done in rehearsals. I feel that the majority of us managed to capture the pace that our characters would interact and carry themselves and presented that effectively to the audience.

I felt one of the main strengths of my performance was the fact I knew all my lines and my cues confidently enough to be able to focus on her character and the way I was going to portray her story towards the audience. Not needing to worry about my lines as I knew them well was extremely useful as I could put the extra effort into portraying her character and playing my objectives during my performance. Another aspect I felt that was one of my strengths was that I used my voice effectively enough to articulate my words and I felt that I used enough projection that my lines were able to be heard by everyone in the room. This was one of the main struggles for the cast in general as I found that during rehearsals it was quite hard to hear some peoples’ performances and so I tried to put in extra effort to be able to be heard clearly and I think I carried that out successfully in my final performance.

If I had had more time to work on Ranyevskaya’s character, I would have gone into greater detail about her characterisation and more specifically, her physicality. Though, I feel I managed to portray the basics of her characterisation through my physicality – I feel this was one of my biggest weaknesses and I would have liked to developed it in increased detail and really have explored the way she holds herself. I found it quite hard to approach Ranyevskaya’s physicality with bold characteristics, as her physicality isn’t completely specified in the text, and I didn’t want to stray too far off the text. However, I would have liked to have had the chance to spend a little more time developing a further understanding. Another aspect I would have liked to improve and have explore further, if I had the chance, would be the way Ranyevskaya uses her voice. I that was another one of my weakest areas as I feel I barely touched on the surface and would have liked to have experimented more using my voice to explore layers of her character.

Over the term I learnt that naturalism is hard to portray on stage and it takes a lot of understanding to do it effectively as you have to learn and get the grasp of many different techniques to staying true to the character. Initially I found this quite challenging to understand, however, over the term my understanding developed through the different workshops that took place and my own research. By understanding the different key aspects of naturalism, I could use different techniques effectively in my final performance. I think I managed to achieve the most naturalistic performance I could at this stage in my acting development in my final performance; however, in the future I would like to explore naturalism further and develop my skills.

Stanislavsky’s different naturalistic methods helped me develop a deeper understanding of my character, I explored different areas of my character that I usually wouldn’t have approached or looked at in great detail previously. I felt his exercise of ‘Magic If’ really helped me explore the different ways Ranyevskaya may react in different situations. This helped me develop a further understanding of her character and how I would present that in my final performance. Another method I found useful was his use of objectives and splitting scenes into units. By giving Ranyevskaya an overall super-objective it meant I was able to understand her character in better detail and develop a deeper understanding on how to present that on stage. My development was also helped by splitting the singular scenes into different units and giving each unit a different objective – this meant I understood Ranyevskaya’s motivation in each scene and what she was trying to achieve. This was one of my main strengths in my final performance as I kept my objectives in mind throughout the performance and I feel I managed to portray my objectives towards the audience effectively enough to present a performance true to her character.  

I felt that one of the strongest performances was Felix's portrayal of Yepikhdov. He managed to portray the unhappiness and hurt behind Yepikhdov’s character really successfully, causing the audience and myself to feel sympathetic towards the character and his situation. He held Yepikhdov’s physicality in such a way that presented him as of a lower status than those around him, he seemed drawn in on himself and sad, presenting his inner turmoil over his feelings towards Dunyasha to the audience. However, contrastingly, there were also scenes where he played Yepikhdov quite confidently – such as; in his first scene with Lopahkin or with his argument with Varya. This added different layers to Felix’s characterisation of Yepikhdov, presenting the idea that his character is a lot more refined than what may be displayed on the surface.

Overall, I feel that my performance as Ranyevskaya was successful and I am extremely happy with our final performance. I think I managed to portray her character to the audience through different aspects of Stanislavsky's techniques whilst staying true her character. I have learnt many different skills over this term which I had never had the chance to develop before and so I have gained new knowledge and experience that I will definitely use in further roles and their development.