Task 4: Spotlight on you: Evaluation

Spotlight on you: Evaluation

This year in acting I have learnt the following styles + techniques:

Greek Theatre

Comedic

Shakespearean

Physical Theatre

Naturalistic

Strengths

Over the year I believe I have gained many skills from doing acting and I have a lot of strength in many areas. To begin the year in acting we done Greek Theatre, out of all of the acting skills and techniques we have learnt over the year I think this is my weakest one but I still had many strengths from it. One strength of leaning Greek theatre for me was being apart of a chorus as I was exceptionally good at voice quality / soundscapes. This is the ability to combine the high, mid, and low voices in the group, you can combine these for special effects. Also the ability to communicate, through voice and reactions to thoughts or emotions. I would always be the lower voice when it came to being in a chorus as this was the best vocal placement for me, even though this wasn't singing, it was just right for my voice.

Another are where I have gained a lot of strength in is Comedic Theatre (Comedia Dell'arte). This is when we used masks to tell the story, the masks would be used to portray different emotions and characters effectively. Wearing the masks would make the characters more visible to the audience. When it come to Comedic Theatre my strongest point was definitely characterization as I studied each character very well so that when it came to putting the masks on I would know instantly who the characters were, how they would acted, if they were a nice, evil, or crazy character, and how they may have spoken. I enjoyed doing Comedic Theatre very much and wished we had spent more time on this, so I hope to do more in the future with the Comedia Dell'arte masks.

The next topic we moved onto was Shakespearean Theatre, specifically A Midsummer Night's Dream. I have never really enjoyed studying Shakespeare and his works very much but there was something different that made me really enjoy doing A Midsummer Night's Dream, I think the story and the different majority of characters really stuck out to me. One strength I had when leaning about Shakespeare and Elizabethan England was the language, they had words such as dost (do), ought (privy to, promised), whence (from where) and eft (ready). When we done our performance piece on A Midsummer Night's Dream I studied each word that was Elizabethan English so I knew how to say it and how I should act when saying that word. For example if I had said the word gast I would have to act scared as that word today means scared.

Then the topic we moved onto after that was Physical Theatre. I have been doing Physical Theatre for years as it was something that was taught very heavily in drama in high school. Physical Theatre is pretty straight forward, it emphasizes physical movements, gestures, and expressions to convey to convey a story or evoke emotions without relying heavily on spoken language. My strength in Physical Theatre is my hand-eye coordination with whoever I am partnered up with, this is very crucial as you need to see your partner very well to get everything correct at the same time as no words are being spoken to help that. Another strength I have in Physical Theatre is my ability to remember the moves I need to do with my hand, arms, or any other body part that is needed to put a piece together in Physical Theatre.

The final topic we worked on this academic year is Naturalistic Theatre. We only recently had finished this and out of them all this was definitely my favorite as it was a more up to date theatre than just theatre from many years ago. It was not only more up to date stuff but it intertwined all the other works we had done over the year, for example, Sophocles from Greek Theatre and Shakespeare from Shakespearean Theatre. We made sure as a group that we also included a lot of Physical Theatre as I think most of us enjoyed that topic the most. When doing Naturalistic I think my strength was definitely characterization once again as I played Shakespeare very very well. I did a lot of research on Shakespeare to play this character.

Overall I can see that I am succeeding very much in acting and I am building more and more strengths the more we do different topics. I can't wait to see what the next academic year has in store for acting and I hope to peruse acting more in the future.

Weaknesses

There are many weaknesses I have faced over the year but these are my main ones starting off with Greek Theatre. Greek Theatre is very different from what we are used to today in theatre so this was one I struggled with the most out of all the topics. One major weakness that I faced when doing Greek Theatre is that it was very difficult for me to remember my lines when doing chorus speaking, it's a very different way to how we speak today as this was between 550BC and 220BC. I found it hard to remember some of the words and phrases as that wasn't how I would speak on a day to day basis.

Next was Comedic Theatre (Comedia Dell'arte). I loved Comedic Theatre but that doesn't mean there was some struggles that I was facing. One weakness I had in Comedic Theatre was the improvisation which is sometimes required. We need to be quick on our feet, responding to unexpected situations and interactions while staying true to the characters and the overall storyline. We must possess a deep understanding of the characters, the plot, and the comedic timing to keep the performance engaging and entertaining for the audience. Improvisation has always been such a struggle for me but it is very important in the acting industry.

 Then we moved onto Shakespearean where like I said before has always been my least favorite topic of all when it comes to acting and literature. One weakness I had that was less of a technique but more of a personal ability, I struggled with the rehearsals as this is something I found hard to focus on and learn the Elizabethan English words for. I was always trying to push myself and what helped me the most was the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream as it was so interesting to me and I loved playing Demetrius as he was a very angry character and I think I can characterize that very well.

After that was Physical Theatre. Once again, even though I loved Physical Theatre there was still a lot of things I wasn't perfect at and that I was struggling with. My weakness is the same as Comedic Theatre where it was hard for me to improvise and remember exactly what I had improvised, it would take a lot of going over for it to get into my head and also the need of exceptional control over the body as well as precise movements and a high level of physical fitness to execute the movements effectively. Unfortunately my fitness isn't as good as it used to be.

 Finally was Naturalistic Theatre which had probably the littlest weakness but one that stood out for me was my comedic timing. Good comedic timing is there to help deliver jokes, punchlines, and humorous moments effectively, maximizing the impact on the audience. It involves knowing when to pause, when to deliver a line, and how to create suspense to build up a comedic moment. With precise timing, us actors can generate laughter, create tension, and engage the audience in the comedic elements of the performance. This skill enhances the overall quality of the production and ensures that the humor lands well with the audience, making the theatrical experience more enjoyable. 

From this for future development in acting I want to improve on learning lines. I always find learning lines and remembering them is such a struggle for me and I want to make sure I get better, as whenever your acting weather it's on stage or on tv there is always a script where that performance has come from and the story is in the script so it all needs to be remembered.