Final Evaluation

The final performance of a Taste of Madness happened today. We performed once at 4:30 and again at 6:30, with both the performances having their strengths and weaknesses.

The promenade performance of the first piece had a stronger reaction due to the age of the audience. I believe the effect of the masks was prominent because they were younger, hence the fear factor influenced them more. I think the promenade was able to create a fluid transition from circus to nirvana. I was able to play with the fear factor as soon I started realising this reaction was present in the audience, but aimed to play even more with the masks in the next performance. They are a very strong choice of prop, so strong objectives are needed to push their intentions out to the audience.

The 4:30 show was always going too fuelled with energy and nerves as it was the first time we were performing to a public audience. I think the best part of this performance was the dedication to our characters within the bar. We got into character 15 minutes before we started performing. This gave us so much stimulus that carried the energy throughout the bar from when we started getting into character right up until the audience left. Character development was something we struggled with throughout the whole process as we got caught up in the improvisation and didn't believe we had to form solid characters. However in this performance the strong choices we made for our characters was what made this performance so effective. Being in the atmosphere of such contrasting energies created a sense of organised chaos; we had finally found the balance between the freedom of our piece within the improvised sections and the need to keep the piece clean so as it maintained its strong message at its core. I stuck with the choice of my American accent and pushed my emotion forward, aiming to fill the space, but the confidence to do this didn't come until the second performance. I believe our characters in this bar created a rich atmosphere of vibrant energies that I hope touched the audience in the same way it did the actors.

I think the worst time part of the first performance was the audience involvement. I believe this was both due to our confidence when approaching the audience and their apprehension in letting go and giving over to our concept. I think our piece works best when the audience can take away specific ideas and feel they have gone on this huge promenade journey and come to stop at our bar. Giving them that experience is very important and will push our message out to our audience.

The ensemble piece went well in the first performance and we were all able to create a beautiful portrait using only sellotape and torches. I think such a minimalistic artistic choice both looked good and created a strong reaction from the audience. One of the challenges of the whole piece was being able to immerse the audience inside a brain to express our message on mental health. It is such a broad topic that is was easy to overcomplicate our concepts, but deciding on this simple idea proved the opinion that less is more. My speech worked well alongside the piece in front of me, but for the second performance I wanted to work more with the way I used the words to enhance the piece instead of just feeding the audience lines. The second show was a chance for me to go bigger and better with my vocal choices.

The second show was intensified in energy, nerves and determination to create a performance that lived up to both ours and the audience’s expectations. The promenade performance was intensified by the timing of the second show. The sun had gone down and the moon was out and lighting was bright and intense provided from the wall lights and lampposts. It gave the whole scene an eerie feeling and highlighted the masks very well. Combined with my choice to push the effect the masks can have on the audience and the new lighting, the audience reacted very well even with the different age of the audience and their boundaries within the theatrical experience. After performing the promenade piece for the last time I am glad the audience got to get a glimpse into the strange world that we had created. They were able to dip into the weird and wonderful minds of 16/17 year old, experiencing a whole new dimension of a theatrical piece.

Our second performance of ‘A Taste of Tom Waites’, created a sense of all or nothing. We all knew the one element that our piece lacked was a sense of complete freedom and spontaneity; we had to take the last step and give ourselves over to the piece, so as the audience could too. I think the last performance inspired us to do that and we put in all the energy from our nerves and anticipation into the performance. The audience involvement in the piece made the atmosphere amplify tenfold and our bar officially came to life. The audience seemed to create characters of their own and completely immerse themselves in our world which allowed us to do the same. It was an amazing world to be a part of and the only complaint I had was that it ended too soon.

The only improvement I would have if I were to continue our world would be the way I told my stories. I wish that I could adopt the style of Tom Waites to tell my stories. Instead of telling more naturalistic tales, I would like to tell fantastic, wondrous stories of people and events that could only exist in a bar set in the brain of Tom Waites.

The ensemble piece adapted the same energy as our bar piece, with everyone adopting an ensemble sense of pride and determination for our piece, willing it to be successful so as to propel us to the very last second, pushed all the way by energy and precision. My speech adopted a new purpose, with me using my voice skill set to make the words come to life and add to the intensity and wonder of the whole piece. However the intensity made me stumble over my words at the end, which annoyed me, as it finished the piece on a mistake. However I corrected the mistake and do not believe that it ruined the rest of the piece.

The piece as a whole, I do not see as over or finished, more as an ongoing process. The world I created, the characters that came to life and the words I spoke existed in a moment and so they can go forward and develop into in new ideas that branch from the initial thought we had in week one. I have thoroughly enjoyed this process, investigating themes and ideas, that even in theatre, can get left in the shadows of silence. I created and more importantly, met people in that bar that are unforgettable. I got to access parts of the theatrical process that I have always wanted to; improvised stories, performed to an audience on a simple whim of inspiration. I pushed my boundaries and I hope the audience were pushed to. Our performance may have been rough around the edges, but I think it expressed perfectly the subject matter we set out to challenge.