Journal Entry: Performance

First thing is first: I would like to congratulate everyone involved! From some of the feedback I have been receiving, "Pig" was something that nobody has seen in a Play Project in some time, and something of which we all should be very proud. It has been an absolute pleasure working with all of you, and I look forward to doing it again in the upcoming years.

Strong:

What I really noticed about our performance was how well we were tethered together and listening to one another. The pacing, which we worked so arduously on, somehow came effortlessly with an audience in the room. Moments that we struggled with in rehearsal were brought to life when an audience kept us accountable for making sense of it. And I think those last two days of rehearsal were to thank for our exception showcase of listening ability. It seems to me that the moment we began to take this project seriously, like we were really performing it, the play's pace, and arch, and feel was really opened to us. One of the lessons I will take away from this piece is the importance of knowing what production you are in. We found our production in the run-throughs we had on Monday and Tuesday night. And that I believe informed every choice we made, making in affective and meaningful to an audience.

For me personally, I was pleased in the fact that I achieved the goal I set out for myself prior to the performance. I felt that I had separated my focus from "what action am I doing" to listening and responding to my fellow cast members and the audience. And it was that focus, and letting go of the work that I believe made the showing an enjoyable event.

Weak:

For me personally, and is true of other members of the cast, in the actual performance of the piece, I felt extremely, what Barbara would call, "heady." Thomas Douglas in his class today asked the question, "how can we fully give ourselves over to the work if we judge ourselves in the midst of doing it?" He said that, and my thoughts instantly went to my performance yesterday. I kept finding myself having moments where my thoughts would stray into "How is this going?" or "Did I really just say it like that?" and other useless similar questions, whose only real affect was to distract me from what I wanted from my fellow characters. I thought that there was an aspect of my performance of Wednesday that was trying to re-achieve the moments that occurred on Monday and Tuesday night. The performance was not entirely based on that, but moments of it were definitely present.

Interesting:

I know I am not the only one in the cast that "felt" this way about their performance. And yet, people have taken the performance as one of the best Play Projects that they had ever seen. That disconnect is astonishing to me. I don't know how that can be possible; that the audience loves a show that the actors don't feel was the strongest. What it reveals is exactly what Matt says about "feeling." That it is completely unreliable. But for me that raises the question of what you do rely on. I think that I have found the answer, and it can all be found in scoring a script. An actor must rely on simple Objectives, Obstacles, and Actions. If you make what you want, what is standing in your way, and what tactic you are going to use to get what you want absolutely clear to yourself, and then embody those thoughts physically, then all you have to do is follow through on that homework and you need not rely on anything else. It really reveals the importance of the rehearsal process, and maps out what you need to complete in a rehearsal process. Its all just so simple. And I think for me that was the biggest lesson that I needed to take away from Play Projects.

Congratulations again, my friends. A very, very good start.

K