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Performance review



On Wednesday it was my performance night. Overall, I was very pleased with the way it went, I have never had such a long rehearsal process so the lines and the staging for each section felt like muscle memory. I didn't have to think very hard about what my next line was and where I was supposed to be on the stage because each scene had been thoroughly rehearsed so I could really focus on embodying the character of Antigone and I had never felt so in character as I did on my performance night. Another element that we could only really engage until performance was the metatheatre element of it because when the chorus says 'she's going to have to play her part right through to the end.' I only really understood that line until that night when the audience was there. It blurred the line even further as to what was acted and what was real because I found that I didn't have to act that gut feeling of what I was about to do and each line the chorus said I slowly got more and more into character.

There were a few things that could have been avoided if I were to do it a second time however. One of the most obvious being the fact that in the second Nurse scene, the toast fell of the tray which was on my lap, this happened due to my legs shaking with nerves. Whilst continuing with the lines I was thinking what would be best, my initial instinct would have been to just pretend it didn't happen and left it on the floor but that wouldn't have made nose with the meta theatre style of the performance so I picked up the toast in character after both I and Nurse reacted to the mishap in character, acknowledging the fact that it had happened.

I also found during the performance that in the climactic end of the Creon scene in which my character is shouting (almost screaming) at the top of her lungs about wishing to die before her life becomes boring. In rehearsals I had starting shouting at the same point but I think in the performance the adrenaline and energy I had from performing meant that I got too loud too quickly, meaning I couldn't physically increase my volume anymore and my voice started to weaken. It also didn't help that I had a cold as well on the night, but I knew that in hindsight so I should have thought about preserving my voice for when it was absolutely necessary to use that volume and intensity because although it's metatheatre and we acknowledge that there is a real person beneath the character, towards the end, when I'm covered in dirt and going crazy on stage I am so emerged in the character that for the audience to be aware of the fact that there is a real human actor who has a sore throat from shouting detracts from the intense realism of the moment.
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