When I look back at my drama piece I believe it was quite successful in a number of different ways, including the symbolism of the old versus the new approach to the piece which when I look back at the performance was very easy to look at and make a connection which meant that when Dillon and I were performing it also allowed the audience to watch the performance and realise the symbolism we intended to use, I also think that the extra minute at the beginning was very well executed especially for an addition that wasn’t in the original script as it allowed the viewers to make other connections to why Agamemnon at the time was annoyed and angry because his phone went off while he was trying to work. Finally I think the spacing especially for Dillon’s character was very well executed as it showed a lot of the guard fear when in the presence of Agamemnon as he was worried to move even one step out of his position in fear of being yelled at by Agamemnon, this is especially present in the ending where I have to end up saying ” Achilles, here now in person” for Dillon to move and whilst that wasn’t planned in rehearsal, I believed it worked very well to describe the guards character.
However when looking back at my performance I believe there were several different flaws that made it less than amazing, One of these include my standing position in the piece that was predominantly my back to the audience which meant when I was talking my facial expression were not seen which to many of the audience member was of had a major impact in my performance as the audience could not have seen my face whilst talking to Dillon, I think that I would need to reposition me and Dillon so that the whole time I’m on stage my face is visible to the audience and so is Dillon’s. Another decision I thought wasn’t very well executed was when I say “I do not Fu**ing need this” and throw the book and pen on the floor, after this I saw that because this element wasn’t planned it threw Dillon off completely as you can see him smiling at 2:53 in the performance which for a split second would have made the emotions slightly different to what they should have been, In future I should make sure that I plan that sort of acting in rehearsal before I do it in the real performance as it was a choice that kind of backfired in execution. Lastly throughout my piece I used hand gesture which would have been fine in the ending but I feel that it would have been a very large distraction for the audience to look at while the performance was taking place, in future I should restrict myself from using hand gestures only when I need to use them.
I feel from my performance that I do in fact meet some of the intentions of the playwright and the play because to me the scene that I performed in as in the scene I felt that it was about betrayal and anger because the scene is basically all about Agamemnon being stabbed in the back by Achilles and him taking all his anger out on an innocent bystander being the guard. I feel like the costumes and symbolism met the intention of the conflict like the Palestine Israeli conflict and the Trojan war and bringing them together in my performance which I believe was an intention to make the symbolism of the old clashing with the new even more predominant in our performance. I also think by playing up the anger a bit it allows Agamemnon’s true intention to show in which the playwright intended him to act upon his so called greatest soldier betraying him after he gives his pride back in the form of Briseis the slave girl. Lastly I believe the areas where the performance wasn’t meant to be overly angry but instead sarcastic shined through as well like “He’ll never go, He’ll fuck her senseless” which I felt was played very well executed and showed the intention of his sarcasm on Achilles act of betrayal.
In conclusion I feel that our performance was quite well executed but is far from a perfect performance and I believe I could do much better in the future.
React!