Week 12: N2C

Reviewing the performance

We performed on the 15th of December to an audience of around 40 people. Before we went on, our director, Lindsay, asked us to get into character and do some quiet line run-throughs with people that we had scenes with. I went through a scene with Jay which involved a lot of movement that we rehearsed in a small space by ourselves. Whilst we were doing this, we discussed how we react to each other and how we could make these actions bigger. We concluded that we needed to angle our bodies towards the audience so that the audience would get the full impact of the movement and also, move slightly more apart so that our actions would hit the other person. After this I went through the final scene which was between me and King. We wanted to get the space in between each of our lines as small as possible so that the audience would be engaged right to the end. 

When directing the last scene, Lindsay said that she wanted Mouse's reactions to King to be completely juxtaposing to her reactions in the quiz scene. My reactions to King in the quiz scene were exaggerated to make it look like I was disgusted when he didn't know the answer to some of the easiest movie quote answers like Star Wars and Titanic. So in the last scene, I had to still keep some of the disbelief in the straight answers that were in response to some detailed questions but also create a friendly atmosphere that made the audience feel welcomed as the relationship between Mouse and King had changed. We needed to show the development of their relationship throughout the play and show that they went from being enemies in the film and then to being the co-directors of the play. We tried to show some of the relationship development through King directing some of his questions towards Mouse. For example, once he's shown the whole group his new film, which is around the middle of the play, he asks Mouse for her opinion on the film which shows King's developing his appreciation of Mouse's knowledge and experience with film.

One of the scenes that I thought went particularly well was the scene where the cast is introduced to the Platinum Class cinema screens. I think that the Godber style was clearly shown throughout this scene as it was labelled at the start and also many different stereotypes were shown when the new class was introduced. For example, Fish was over exited, Mags didn't really care and Spike and Elton looked as though they thought that they'd played a huge part in the creation of Platinum Class when they actually had nothing to do with it and just watched King make it instead. In this scene, I was the only character that didn't seem impressed or appreciated how amazing this was as, at Mouse's old cinema all of the cinema suites were like Platinum Class as so Mouse was impressed because this was what she was used to. 

A scene that I think could have done with some improvements was the montage scene as that was only directed quite late on in the process and some characters, like me, weren't given any specific directions or lines to say which resulted in, firstly me just being frozen in position and I had to tell some of the cast members what action they should do and in conclusion all of the characters final position was them all frozen in the same arm position but in the reverse hierarchy position.

I think that the hierarchical staging was a good way of showing the uprising of Mouse and also how the hierarchy changed from beginning to the end. It clearly showed the audience who was at the top of the food chain and who was at the bottom with the positioning of the characters. For example at the start, I was laid on the floor because I was a Plankton which was at the bottom of the food chain but when we got into the reverse hierarchy position, I was stood in place of King who is a Buff and at the top of the food chain.

Overall I feel that the performance went well from my perspective as an actor as all the Godber aspects were shown clearly and there were hardly any mistakes that were made. The space between lines were quite short and all of the staging movements went as smoothly and the audience were laughing the whole way through the performance, which was one of the main goals we were aiming for.