Silent Monologue Assignment: Performance Reflection

I think my performance turned out decently. Though I had been pretty packed during the week that I was supposed to perform, I gave it my full effort. I think my rehearsal time was somewhat limited however, and I could've taken the time to rehearse maybe once or twice more than I did.

I think the emotion that I portrayed through my performance was one of my strengths. Some audience comments said that the emotion I portrayed made them feel the sadness, the depression, and the grief themselves. I felt that I truly put myself into my performance, and put myself into the place of the surgeon, and that was a reason why emotions came through so strongly and people could feel the emotion. I think another one of my strengths was how I blocked out my performance. I focused on three certain spots of the stage for my blocking. I used the actor's stage right for the surgery room, stage middle for the family waiting room, and stage left for my personal office. I tried to keep my position in a place where it was easy for the audience to see what was exactly going on during my performance, and I also think that helped my performance do well.

One main thing did not go as I had planned. Before my performance, I had planned out timing for everything I had to do. (i.e. 20 seconds for this, 10 seconds for that.) However, while performing my silent scene in front of the class, I seemed to speed everything up by a lot. I had planned out my performance so that it would last for the full span of the song, but I ended a lot earlier than planned. It seemed as if nerves had made me unaware of how fast I was doing everything. Mrs. Weil noticed and she said that it was as if I rushed everything. It was a little irksome that I let my nerves get to me, since I knew I would be nervous and I had taken the time to plan what would happen in my scene.

One of the things I did the first time I performed my silent monologue was I didn't allow the full time for the impact of what was happening in my scene to sink in with the audience, and allow them to truly process what was happening, so if I had the chance to perform again, I would change that. I would try to slow down everything that happened, to achieve the full impact of the serious emotion that was occuring within my performance.

Overall, I believe my performance turned out decently. Mrs. Weil gave me a 48.5/50 points which was an A. However, I do believe I could've improved if I had not let my nerves get to me.