Task 4

We have just done our performance of Bouncers to a small audience as part of our workshop and it went very well as a performances. One of the scenes that went well in my opinion was the lads in the bar who are doing rounds; I believe this went well as one of our main problems in rehearsal was keeping the energy and fast pace speech needed for this scene but when we got on the stage we manage to keep this scene going without dying down, we managed to keep our energy up by improvising our lines instead of doing how they were scripted. Another scene that I think went well was the second girl scene wear Rosie learns that her boyfriend has cheated on her, I like how we go to dance and the other girls dance away from Rosie on the other side of the stage as they don’t want to be with her then kick her out of the photo they go to take, this worked well as it made it clear to the audiences that Rosie was an outcast of the group. After this Rosie starts her speech, I personally don’t like this speech as in rehearsals I wasn’t very good at it and I was worried that I was going to mess up the big speech. I struggled with sounding and saying how I felt upset about seeing my boyfriend cheating on me with another as when I first did this in rehearsals I did really high pitch but no one could understand me and when brought down the pitch I didn’t sound upset. I found this hard trying to find a way of saying the lines without sounding to upset so that the audiences could understand me. My main problem was that I didn’t look at the audiences while I was speaking; the whole purpose of this was that I tell the audiences how I feel why the other girls don’t care so I need to address them with the line. When it came to the performances I think I managed to improve on all of this as I sounded upset but the audiences could understand me and I keep eye contact with them but there were parts where I looked away. Most of the scenes went well and not many mistakes were made but there were some things I would have liked to have changed for the performance and develop for if we did it again. One of the scenes I would have liked to have cut out from the performance was the Wak and Wak scene as I couldn’t do the liverpudlian accent and I feel that really brought down the scenes energy and comedic value, this scene also doesn’t play any relevant to the story as not much happens. The show could be improved and developed in many way, one of the ways I would have liked to improve the show would have been to performed the entire play but because this was a workshop we cut out some scenes so we could focus on the workshop, by doing this I think we lost the main plot of the show and some scenes with good jokes that I think the audiences would have liked. I would have liked to have done every part of the story as there are a lot of interesting and key scenes like Eric finds out that his wife has been having an affair in one of the last scene but we removed everything to do with that plot. Another part of the story we removed was to do with infertility which I would have liked to do as that a very deep scene. One of the things that disappointed me was how we set up our audiences and our stage as I wanted big round tables with the people sat around each one and to have also had a bar on one side selling a range of drinks. Sadly as were in a school we were not allowed to sell alcoholic drinks and also we need a licence to do this so we weren’t allowed a bar. We didn’t have the round tables either as we only had on big round table which wouldn’t be enough to seat everyone so we compromised with smaller square tables so people could sit in groups with their friends. I would have really liked to have done the show in an actual night club as it would of helped set the mood. It would be a good idea for the show to have been in a nightclub as it would help with John Godber’s original intentions with the show as he wanted Bouncers to bring in the Masses to the theatre world. Doing the show in a night club would help this as people will feel more relaxed and comfortable in a club then a theatre as it’s more of a familiar setting and our audiences would feel they would have more freedom in moving around more , instead of being confined to a seat in a theatre. I would have liked to have been able to have scenery on stage for the scenes like in the hair dressers I think it would have been better if we had an overhead hair dryer for Ralph and in the pub scene with the lads I think it would of looked better if we had an actual bar. I would of also of like to of had a Bar for the when we were in night club and when the lads were at the pub. Scenery would have helped in setting the scene but the problem with scenery is that it would slow down the energy going from scene to scene having to wait while each of the scenery was set up. If we could have had scenery I would have had not many, only what was essential like the bar and help sort out moving it by having the bar on wheels for easier movement on stage when changing scene. Our main area I would have liked to have improve our projection as several members of the audiences said they struggled to hear several parts of the dialogue especially due to the music we added to the scenes as the audience said the songs was sometimes all they could hear during the scenes. One thing that annoyed me about the opening of our show was that the audience didn’t find it as funny as we thought it was when we came up with the idea, the opening was one of our favourite parts of the show and the piece we put the most energy in as it was meant to be us making ourselves look stupid trying to dance and getting caught by the next Bouncer to walk on, so it was a bit off putting to not hear the audience laughing at us during this piece. To develop the production further I believe we could plant some more actors in the audiences as we only kicked-out two people at the start but i think we could get more people planted to do something during the performances that we as bouncer can get involved in which would be effective as we would be able to create a longer performance and it would help destroy the fourth wall between us and the audiences as they would be aware that we could go in to the audiences, this would also help with John Godber’s original intention’s as it makes the show more believable as the audience could relate to either being kicked out or watch someone get kicked out. I believe this would help us make the audience feel uncomfortable in a way that makes them believe they are in are club and anyone can be a planted actor who could do something any minute. Another way to develop the production further I think would be to sell alcohol because we could have an actual bar for the performance which sold alcohol so are audience could relax and have a drink, I also would of liked us as bouncers to be able to but a drink so we can give us a more distinguished look of an older bouncer. My last point to develop the production further would be as a group to think about the delivery of are lines. Like the first scene, when we all greet each other, I feel we need to take more time between lines so there can be a clear social problem with them as they don’t know what to talk about with each other. Final as an actor I feel Bouncers as a workshop has really helped me develop areas of my acting skills, mainly in multi-rolling as I have never done a play where I have to play more than one part when I couldn’t leave the stage and change, by doing this this helped me in my skill of developing my characters as I had to do 3 different characters at once so I had to make clear physical differences between then so the audience would know I’m a different character. Another skill of mine that has developed was my skill in improve as there were several parts of the show we a adjusted with a couple of line but mainly in the bar scene as we had to keep are pace going in the scene so we agreed in not sticking to the script in that scene and we will improvise our lines. When we are doing rounds at the bar, between the drinks we made up some of the lines which went well and I feel this one piece helped my improve skill as I had to be quick with our lines.