Our cast performed on the 19th of December to an audience of around 60 people. From the start of the performance, the cast established the style well and reflected all of the direction that we had given them throughout the rehearsal process. Although there were some pauses during the last two sections, where the cast had forgotten lines, and there was the majority of one section was missed out due to a line slip which meant that a lot was cut out, the cast continued to perform the piece at their best and finished the piece without too many other mistakes. Having these slip -ups meant that the piece didn't have its complete effect on the audience although the cast did continue to maintain the style and the directions that we had given them to the best of their abilities.
Looking at the performance from the beginning, the timing of the entrances was exactly as directed but the only problem that we didn't take into consideration was the raked seating would block the idea of two of the cast coming in from the back. When Leah, the cast member who entered from outside, knocked on the door only a few of the audience turned around to look meaning that didn't have the effect that we wanted, although the audience did watch both people walk down the sides of the seating. The last entrance worked well as all the others were in quite quick concession of each other which meant that the juxtaposition was increased and therefore bigger effect was created when Hannah entered from sit in the audience. We wanted the entrances to highlight the difference between each person and show that each person was an individual that was coming to help with the delivery of the messages of the piece. We tried to reflect this in the lights with more light entering the stage as each person entered to reflect that each person was needed to have a complete performance. We didn't want the lighting to make the play seem artificial and so we had some lights on the audience and on the back corner of the room so that the majority of the room was lit.
The first two sections of the piece were very fluid and the speed of the lines was as directed and the pace of the piece meant that the topics that were being introduced had a greater impact than they would if the pace was slow as the audience was more immersed in what was being said. The group movements, like the head movements and the lift, were very synchronised and had the desired effect on the audience as some of them reacted audibly and we assumed that this meant that they were re-engaged with the performance - the effect that we wanted.
When we got to Section 3, I think that the casts nerves really began to set in as this is where they began to miss lines and where a substantial amount of script was lost due to one of the cast members saying a line that was too early and it ended up skipping the last third of section 3 and moving onto the start of section 4. The cast carried on as well as they could but it threw some of them off which resulted in some pauses between lines but the segment that was missed out included some of the more interesting topics and also the paragraph that involved the ideas about their capacity to generate surprise is slowly decreasing is a very interesting idea for the audience to consider whilst watching the piece but they couldn't consider it because they didn't hear it. After one of the pauses, two of the cast members tried to cover it up by saying a line, but this just led to them saying their lines over the top of each other. By this point in the play, it was completely up to the cast as to how they were going to react to this and how they were going to deal with this. Perhaps, it could have been down to something in the rehearsal process, as we wanted the atmosphere to not be pressuring on the cast as we didn't think that a stressed rehearsal environment was a successful and productive one but taking this into consideration, maybe we could have been a little harsher on line learning so that the cast knew the order of the lines better. We also had a cast member who became very nervous before hand and we did see her nerves reflected in her performance as she forgot the majority of her paragraph but covered this up by saying what she could and the piece carried on.
Overall, the cast managed to continue with their performance and maintained the style even through their errors. The exits had the same effect as the entrances with each person going off the way they came and as we left Maisie on stage, the final blackout came down on a performance that did have some errors but majority reflected Etchells intentions and the Forced Entertainment style.
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