Evaluation

Part 1: Analyse and evaluate your interpretation of your character/role in the final performance.

My chosen stimulus was the phrase Who am I? and my chosen genre was physical theatre. I was being
marked on my acting skills and I was playing the character of Lucy as well as the chorus.

Lucy was a shy and nervous character who was being bullied by the people at school. She had a difficult
home life and didnt get on well with her mum. I decided that Lucys main friend was going to be her pet
mouse and I decided to show this by using a small sock puppet. Lucy was quiet and afraid most of the time
and this is clear in the school scene when the teacher says why are you always s quiet girl!? Speak up!
She was quiet because she had lots of big thoughts and a great imagination and the story was built around
her wild imagination and the adventures she would go on with her pet mouse.

I found this character exciting to play because she is quite different from me as I am quite loud and
confident. It was also quite challenging to show the home scenes in which Lucy argues with her mother, as
I had to show some serious and emotional responses to the scene.

It was important that the audience saw how difficult Lucys life was so they felt sorry for her so we made
sure we included two difficult home life scenes. The first was the breakfast scene where Lucys mum is
hung over and she hasnt woken Lucy up for school so Lucy is rushing around late and getting her things
together and as she rushes around she knocks over the milk, which causes her mum to shout at her. This
would make the audience feel sorry for Lucy so that they were happy for her to leave reality behind and go
on her magical adventures. I emphasised this further by making sure I cast my eyes downwards and making
my hands shake. The second scene was when Lucy lost her pet mouse and thought her mum had killed it.
We emphasised how terrifying the mum was to Lucy by using 3 people to play the mum at that time to
make her massive and terrifying.

I worked hard to prepare for this role, including completing a character profile and mind map. From the
profile I made decisions such as she was 12 years old, she missed her dad, who left when she was 5, her
favourite hobby was drawing and her pet mouse was called Rupert. We included all of this information in
the scenes we created, for example we included a thought track in the breakfast scene, in which Lucy told
the audience how much she missed her dad. We also decided that all of the adventures would start with
Lucy drawing them on paper and then they would come to life in front of her. We decided that before
drawing anything, Lucy would sit and think out loud who am I? as this would link back to our stimulus
and also each new drawing would be an answer to that question who did Lucy WANT to be.

We also did hot seating to develop the character further. From hot seating I discovered that Lucy always
wanted a younger sister: someone to take care of. We decided to make a scene where Lucy imagines she
has a younger sister and they spend the day playing. Lastly I thought it was important to include some
poetry, as in the hot seating Lucy revealed that she loved poetry. I found a poem about the perfect family
and we decided to act this out at the end to show exactly what Lucy wanted. However after the poem was
acted out, every actor left the stage except Lucy, reminding the audience that actually Lucy was all alone
and her perfect family didnt exist.

Part 2: Analyse and evaluate how your own performance skills contributed to the effectiveness of the
final performance.

The most important thing I wanted to show to the audience about my character was the difference in her
personality between when she was by herself on her adventures and when she was at home or school. I
wanted to show that due to her difficult relationship with her mum and enemies at school she was always
scared and low status at these times. For example in the school scene when the bullies surround Lucy, I
crouched down and filled my body with tension to seem as though I was shaking. I also used similar
gestures to she fear, such as hugging my arms around my body and covering my face with my hands. I
thought I did this effectively as I was completely in character and focused on the fear in that scene.
Another example of this is in the breakfast scene. I decided that every time the mum shouted, for example
when she said why are you waking me up at this time you stupid brat!? Lucy would tremble in fear and
drop everything she was carrying. I thought this worked effectively, however next time I would crouch
down lower and let out a small scream to represent her utter terror.

In comparison to this, I knew it was important to show Lucys confidence and sense of freedom in all of the
adventure scenes. For example in the beach adventure scene I made sure I walked on stage with my
shoulders back, my head held high and with a tall, confident walk. Furthermore, when the beach
bullies/sharks came up onto the beach, rather than cowering down, I chose to stand even taller with my
hands on my hips. On the line No, I wont buy you an ice cream! Get out of here! I stepped forward and
balled my hands into fists. I did this with confidence and exaggeration and it worked perfectly to show the
audience that in Lucys adventures she is strong and brave.

How did you use your voice to show what your character was thinking and feeling? Give a quote and
detailed and specific examples from the play. Do you think you used your voice effectively?
I thought I used my voice effectively throughout the

How did you use your facial expressions to show what your character was thinking and feeling? Give a
quote and detailed and specific examples from the play. Do you think you used your facial expressions
effectively?

My character disliked most of the characters in the real life scenes. I experimented with showing this on
stage in different ways. For example in the mum scenes I obviously wanted to show that Lucy did not like
her mum at all and was actually afraid of her. I showed this by using scared facial expressions such as
screwing up my eyes, biting my lip and breathing deeply to show the character was trying to calm herself
down. I also showed this using proxemics as I made sure that there was always a big distance between us
on stage. I made sure my body language was always cowering lower to the ground and slumping my
shoulders to show I felt scared and to emphasise that I was lower status. In contrast to this, I used body
language to show how much I liked the character of the teacher at the end. In the teacher scene I stood up
tall and confidently to show I felt confident and I wasnt afraid and I also stood closely to the character to
make this clear to the audience. I emphasised this further on the line thank you for everything by
hugging the teacher tightly.

I thought I used my acting skills very effectively overall as I was focused, exaggerated and in character
throughout the entire play. I finished the show feeling exhausted which is a good sign that I put in a lot of
effort.

Part 3: Analyse and evaluate their individual contribution to the final performance, including how
effectively they fulfilled their initial aims and objectives.

I thought I gave an excellent contribution to the overall performance. I was the main character, however
when I wasnt the main character in the scene, I was a chorus member. For example in the scene in which
the mum has a nightmare, I played a chorus member of the scary demons haunting her dreams. I
dedicated myself to this scene as much as to the other scenes.

Our main objective was to teach the audience that inside every scared young person there is bravery and
creativity ready to be found and used. We wanted to do this by showing a weak character with a difficult
home life who overcame those obstacles by finding a way to express herself, through art. I think my
contribution massively helped with this because it was my suggestion to bring all of her art to life in
imaginary adventures. This also was a perfect way to perform in our chosen style of physical theatre as we
used chorus members in most scenes to be different pieces of scenery or act emotions and sequences out.
We wanted the imagination scenes to be larger than life so the audience know they are not real. To make
it even clearer to the audience, I suggested that we start each dream sequence with Lucy drawing and the
chorus chanting in union who am I? Who am I? We were confident with our decision to use physical
theatre because we all like expressing ourselves using our bodies and we were also confident to work
closely together as a team.

We knew our performance was appropriate for young students because of the magical nature of the
adventure scenes and we also that younger students would learn something from the performance
because our aim was to give each audience member confidence to be themselves.

I thought my monologue in the beginning was highly effective because it introduced the character of Lucy
and straight away the audience knew that she was the girl to feel sorry for because of her difficult home
life. I thought I performed it with excellent focus and emotion and I put across what I intended, which was
a serious emotional atmosphere. I achieved this by using some quiet talking and some pauses in the
speech so the tension was built up. I felt that the audience were engaged fully and understood the
character well from the monologue and the feedback was very positive people felt sorry for her.

It was important for the structure of the piece but also for the audiences emotional reaction that Lucys
emotional journey built into a climax. This would keep the audience engaged and also it made Lucys
growth as a person believable. I feel like I showed this very effectively because as the play went on I
because more and more exaggerated and expressive during the dream scenes, using big gestures and clear
body language which showed her growing bravery.

Ultimately we wanted our audience to be thoroughly entertained and sucked into the magical world of
Lucys fantasies but at the same time we wanted them to take something away from it. We want them to
think about this poor character and be inspired that if they go through bad times, there is always light at
the end of the tunnel. I think all of this was achieved. I think we used everything to entertain the audience
and give them something visually spectacular. For example in the beach scene we used a song and
performed choreographed movement to it with shark masks and blue wavey pieces of material to
represent the water. It was obviously playful and a bit silly, but it was fun and magical. I pushed the
audience to feel heightened emotions by making sure my character was using exaggerated facial
expressions of wonderment and joy that the creatures of the sea were coming to life this made the
audience more engaged.

After the performance, the audience gave lots of feedback. They said they thoroughly enjoyed every
moment and felt very entertained by all of the visual aspects. One audience member confirmed that we
had achieved our goal of wanting the audience to empathise with the character as they told me they
wanted to become Lucys friend so she wasnt so lonely!