As You Like It Performance Evaluation

Yesterday was the day in which our seven weeks of work had led up to. We had worked in the new theatre and after our dress rehearsal I felt very sceptical about the performance that night. It was clear that our concept still did not work and we had not found the Arden school girls therefore the play lacked energy and purpose. Also there had been some line slip ups , adding to the stress of whether our play would actually be watch-able that night or just a really boring Shakespeare disaster.

However i feel that we improved a lot from the dress rehearsal. Everyone gave full energy to the performance and it came to life. I'm not sure if our Arden school concept fully translated to the whole audience however it was an extremely big challenge to carry two characters at all time on stage especially as one of these characters was extremely different to to anyone we really knew speaking different language and living in a completely different time frame. However given the challenge I think we mostly embraced it and managed to keep energy and not look like dead pan faced girls awkwardly placed in clumps on stage.

In terms of the As You Like it character relationships i think they really worked on the whole. Orlando and Jacques and a comedic chemistry which really got the audience involved , this relationship came together on the day of the performance. Due to little touches like this the play managed to achieve the light highlighted comedy which it was meant to be being a Shakespeare comedy. Myself and Rebecca also worked really hard on finding Touchstone and Audrey's relationship. Due to the difficult language it had been difficult to really understand how the felt about each other but in the play they were the foolish couple , meant to bring comedy to the play not deep love. I think we achieved this relationship and I found that as I made boulder choices with Touchstone , showing his lust to Audrey our scenes picked up and didn't stick out as slightly unwanted scenes. Another part of the play that I am proud of was me and Cielia and Rosalind's relationship. Particularly me and Cielia's. During the rehearsal process i think we had lacked a spark but during the last rehearsal and the performance we found our fiery relationship , due to this both of our lines made alot more sense and also the reason for Touchstones love for Ceilia was described. The energy that we bought to our performance really picked up the performance at parts and I think helped to keep the audience engaged through a confusing play in a very different language to the normal.

On a more negative note i feel like my performance lacked multi-layering. I dot think i ever really found my Arden school girl or knew how to actually allow her to come through in my performance. It was an extremely challenging task and as there weren't any scene of proper dialogue I found it hard to find a full characterisation. I was also focusing most of my energy on Touchstone as I knew that my performance had to be full of energy and I also had to make sure I spoke my riddly lines with confidence and truth. Therefore being able to fully get across my Arden girl was very hard and I don't feel like I really knew who my character was. I think this was generally a struggle for all of us. Though we had done some work on our characters I don't think we had done enough in the context of the play to be fully comfortable with our multi layering. Due to this reason I don't think our concept was as strong as it could of been.

The all girls cast worked well in my opinion. By the end of the play i had forgot that it was even different to have all girls playing male characters. Obviously this was partly due to our theme but mainly I think it was due to our character relationships. Which I think was the real strength of the performance. Silvius and Phebe conveyed there relationship of love and rejection perfectly succeeding to show this to the audience whilst also being extremely funny. Also Rosalind and Silvius's relationship was successful in showing Silvius's pure ignorance to Roalsind's clever wit and Phebe's love games.

Overall I think our performance went well and couldn't of really gone better on the night for our rehearsal time and concept. Though I don't think it was necessarily that much of a strong performance of a Shakespeare play we all worked very hard and i think characterisation and relationships were impressive for our first time doing Shakespeare as a company.

final rehearsals

As the show approaches i finally feel like i am becoming able to fully connect touchstone and actually create a strong character. After really working on characterising our Arden school girl i began to really think what my girl would think of touchstone and approach then Touchstone from that direction. This h=really helped me as i began getting less bogged down in trying to fully understand touchstone and thought less about the lines and more Touchstones role in the play. My arden character is a playful slightly naughty girl who likes to poke fun at the other girls. With this in mind i have been bolder with my choices for Touchstone and used my tone and voice more effectively in a way to actually create humour. Another thing that has been really important is making sure i bring a lot of energy to my performance. As soon as i began thinking about energy ,playfulness and my arden girl my difficulties with touchstone became less prominent and I could actually have fun with the words and speak them better. Making sure i realise that my arden girl is playing a man had also been an important part of the process. I feel i over looked the importance of the fact i have a gender change essentially in the play. I think that my 50s girl from an all girls school would have a different approach to men than myself. They would be more alien therefor the approach to playing one would be more exaggerated on 'manly' features. Therefor i have tried to use a deeper voice and a more firm stance with my physicality. 

There is still work i have to do to fully become Touchstone but it is refreshing to feel like I am actually improving and getting somewhere with my character.

Touchstone and Ceilia

In rehearsal today me and kate explored Touchstone and Ceilias relationship. Touchstone loves Cielia and respects her and this is due to her feistiness and ability to taunt and play with Touchstone. They are clearly very close in a fun playful way , almost like a brother and sister.
We played one scene along as we finger jousted. This really helped to get our dynamic right , kate playfully attacked me and as she did her words became alive and our dialect made a lot more sense. As i got more sass from Kate i could really react as Touchstone , being witty and playful as i wound her up.
By having our initial scene together much stronger I have been able to connect with Touchstone further and understand his wittiness.

We also looked at playing our two characters today. As we are a school girl from the 50s as well as our shakespeare character it is important that we play our character through the eyes of our school girl. Thus creating a multi textural performance. As we worked on this i began to think more about me being a girl playing a man in the play. Therefor i tried to exxagerrte masculinity and also the fun side of Touchstone. As i began to play Touchstone less refined i found that my relationships with other characters worked a lot better. Also as a play i think working on our school girls is very important , otherwise our climbing frame set , costume and 50s music is all bait irrelevant and disconnected thus making the theme weak.

nearing show, Building on physicality

As we are nearing the time of our performance our rehearsals have become more intense and more important to really engage in . I have become familiar with Touchstone as a character and now that my lines have learnt i am working on re-visiting Touchstone and looking at my character in a fresh way.
Movement in scenes and my physicality to others is really important. As Touchstone speaks in complicated rifles that not only bewilder the audience but also the other characters it is important that i communicate relationships to others through physicality. Also to make Touchstone a fun character and for the words to really come to life its important for me to experiment and keep Touchstone moving so that the words do not become flat. This has been hard without the actual climbing frame to fully experiment on , however i have tried to use the chairs and blocks more and have tried climbing on them. Also in my scene with William instead of sitting and talking to him i get up and will use the different levels of the climbing frame to show my heir achy to him and also to highlight my intelligence to his simple mind which is what is being said in the words shakespeare uses.

I think Touchstone is an adjile character therefor wouldn't really just stand still. I have found it a challenge to play enough with Touchstones movement. Partly due to trying to make sure i don't mess up the lines. Yet i think that in a way his physicality is as important as the words as otherwise they will sound wooden and recited. When the climbing frame is ready i want to take my physicality to the next level and swing on the frame and pop out of different little holes and really make comedy of my entrances and exits.

Touchstone and Audrey - relationship

Touchstone and Audreys relationship is playful and comedic , unlike Rosalind and Orlando it is not filled with deep love but more on the surface want. Touchstone likes the way Audrey looks and wants her and Audrey likes Toucshtones position is society and wants to marry him for status. therefore in a sense it could be said that they use each other , however at the same time there is no sense of wickedness to the relationship and especially as the play yes on it is clear to see they are very fond of each other even if they do not share deep love.

Touchstone like the fact that Audrey is a country bumpkin and not an intelligent woman , she is very different to girls at court and although Touchstone is very found of Ceilai and Roaslind he loves to play around with the fact he is from court and Audrey is from the forest. Touchstone is able to have fun with Audrey and he defeintly like the look of her and is attracted to her. We see this want from the way he repeats her name in the scene where he is going to marry her with sir oliver martext.

The scene with Oliver Martext is interesting as it is slightly puzzling as to what Touchstone wants. Using his clever wit he decides that if the useless vicar Sir Oliver marries him to Audrey than he will have a good excuse to leave her , suggesting he wants her for one thing and when he is done he can leave her . However Touchstone does not let Sir Oliver marry them in the end and tells audrey they will find another time. This is partly spurred on by Jaques commentary to being married in such a low way for a man of court , yet i also think it is because Touchstone does really care for Audrey. Though it is a fun relationship he enjoys her company and how he can act around her , its almost like he actually respected Audrey and is charmed by her. Therefor he does not let the ridicule of wedding take place. This could always be looked on , on the other hand as Touchstone finding excuses so that he doesn't actually have to marry Audrey.

finding Touchstone and Audrey's relationship has been really fun and I think with rusher experimentation and bolder character choices our scene together will be effective.

Photo inspiration for my physicality

Rehearsal process . Further character development.

Rehearsal today was a challenge. My particular struggle was my scene with corin. Our scene is a casual conversation yet Touchstones witty playful digs at Corin our then shut down my Corin. Due to the fact there is not much content to the conversation in regard to the rest of the play it was a struggle getting enough energy and fun into the scene . Also I had long witty paragraphs to say which was a struggle to tone correctly and keep enough energy whilst staying true to my character. I find it much easier to find Touchstones character when working with Audrey or Celia and Rosalind and I found it a struggle to really find Touchstone in this scene.

One way in which I am gong to work on getting this scene right is by looking at pitch , tone and pace within the riddles. Sometimes we found the lines were dragging on to long making the scene feel long and dry. Also it would help me to look more at touchstones characters details as I feel I know the general feel of Touchstone yet it is in the detail that I will be able to connect with Touchstone further and be able to find the comedy and fun rather than making the scene drag on.

Staging in our scene I feel could be played with further to create a more interesting atmosphere to a scene which is lacking in content. I felt we were both standing still and my physicality was quite wooden. Especially with Touchstone it is important that I play around with my physicality and make sure I use my whole body as his will not only strengthen my stage presence but also it will bring the difficult lines to life and give the play the comedy that Touchstone is meant to bring.

With more work on my lines I think I will be able to do this and find Touchstones details.