Evaluation of performance

I thought the final performance went really well and fluent throughout the duration of time within the performance. On the day we decided to include 2 more scenes within the performance which I thought looked very effective and creative especially on an experimental point of view. The first scene we included was the roots/tree scene where each group had to get to the centre of the stage as an ensemble to form the roots to this tree. The actual name of the talking trees are called Ent’s and this were a massive part of The Lord Of The Rings as they conveyed to the audience nature fighting against industrialisation. This scene was very cathartic as we as a group created this incredible and majestic tree and then hacked it apart which then allowed people to separate from the root position and into their other groups. This whole scene gave a lot of focus and attention to the centre of the stage. The other scene we decided to include was the ending which involved the whole cast exploring the space and saying a certain phrase which they had recently used in either one of their groups.  

I thought the transitions between each scene were very impressive and precise as they looked very effective and interesting. I thought the transition from being a root of a tree to then separating into our own groups was very good and looked effective. I thought this transition looked very interesting as we all had a certain purpose when walking to our groups. We was all effected by the hacking of the root which then effected our walk making it look more interesting and fascinating for the audience. Also within the beginning scene with Tolkien and C.S Lewis I thought the transition looked very fascinating as there was a lot going on at that time. After we had done our alphabetical box we started crawling in a creature kind of way as an ensemble to our individual groups. I thought that all the transitions within the performance was not dull at any point as I thought they all had a purpose which made it look more interesting and intriguing.   

During rehearsals we was told by our director to quickly run up to an individual audience member as a soon as they come in and say “stay out of the light” and direct them to a position which is out of the light. We had to be a creature similar to ‘Gollum’ in The Lord Of The Rings adapting to his physicality and voice. I thought this really worked well for our performance as it gave the audience that imaginative and creative input towards the performance. It is also emphasising how important the lighting is within our performance and what effect it has on the characters which they saw. It’s representing that the light is being a gate for a fantasy world and reality.  

As our piece was immersive theatre I straight away thought of the company ‘PunchDrunk’ who have done a lot of immersive theatre productions such as ‘The Tempest’, ‘The Firebird Ball’ and ‘Sleep No More’. I thought our performance was very much like ‘PunchDrunk’ as we made our audience members wear hoodies at all times during the performance. Also we were interacting with the audience and making sure they wasn’t in a group. This would allow the audience to get out of their comfort zone and therefore be able to explore the different performances going on in the space more freely. This is something ‘PunchDrunk’ are known for doing as it allows the audience to experience more things within the performance and I believe this is what we done.

I believe one weakness within the performance was the audience involvement and participation. It was quite noticeable seeing that most of the audience members were on the side of the stage instead of on the stage and exploring the space. I believe we needed to interact with the audience members a lot more than we did as, I think we needed to persuade them in a more physical and vocal way on stage to then allow them explore and experience the space and see different performances and not just from the side. We did have a leaflet that I thought did suggest to the audience to explore the space provided as it said “not all who wander are lost” and “find your own way – be led by intrigue”. However, for some reason the majority of the audience didn’t really get this message therefore, I think this is an area where we need to improve. I think we needed to grab them into the space straight away so that they knew they were supposed to be there.

 

 

I believe the whole cast adopted a serious and professional approach to the performance as it had some quite distressing and real life circumstances scenes involved. I think one person I thought really impressed me within the performance was Lillian. I thought she was very professional and sensible with her character choices and I thought her physicality really suited her character. I thought her physicality with the alphabetical box looked effective and you could see she had a purpose and included effort with that scene.

I thought one of our achievements within the performance was to create an atmosphere and I believe we certainly done that. As there was 4/5 performance's going on at once with each performance being either quiet or loud the atmosphere on stage was amazingly unexpected from an audience perspective I believe. Also I think we were very successful from an Artaud perspective as we used a lot of taboo subjects like disabilities, sex, abuse etc. Therefore we explored many taboo and cathartic subjects within each performance and we tried to make the audience feel uncomfortable when watching these performances happen. So hopefully by showing the audience these uncomfortable subjects through theatre they will realise that it’s really ok to talk about these things and to not shy away from them. I also believe that we from some extent were quite engaging to the audience as I believe we got emotions from them at some stage.

I believe that this type of theatre is very important as it explores subjects society doesn’t really like to talk about and just shies away from. I think immersive theatre has a massive part to play in the future and in modern society as, it is a wonderful type of theatre to experience as you can take a fantasy world like ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ or ‘Narnia’ and compare it to modern society or other historical content in the past and explore important subjects in today’s society. Immersive theatre allows people to experience these types of subjects from a different perspective and see a different story and understanding towards that certain thing.