Pillowman Evaluation

Pillowman

Following the performance of the pillow man I feel that the performance we gave went rather well. I feel that it went well because we all had a good understanding of the characters that we were playing and also we knew the story very well. However I also think the performance went on for maybe a bit too long possibly because of all the stories that we had to try and include and unfortunately we did have to cut quite a chunk of the third act out however I still think that we told the story very well. 

When playing the role of Ariel I felt as if I have played his part well but didn't include some features that are essential for him. For example, I think that I kept portraying him as an angry character whereas he is supposed to be unhinged. However, I feel that because I had such an understanding of Ariel I could have forgotten a line and maybe gave an action to show that he is angry, upset or frustrated at Katurian and Tupolski. 

I also feel that the group that I was in also helped bounce of each other if we may have forgotten a few lines. The production of the play went rather well, we built a big pillow man which included around 15 pillows which we stitched together and attached some rope to the end of the arms and legs. We then attached some hooks to the top of the wall and then put the ropes through them so we could use the pillow man as a pulley system. 

The other thing that I liked about performing pillow man was the fact that I had a lot more opportunity to have a say with an actors choice and maybe improvise parts and make it seem as if it was intentional where as in Rent you couldn’t really do that and you have to try and make sure that you know all the lyrics and you have to get the timing right for the track otherwise you end up running behind and it can become a disaster a lot more quickly. And also in rehearsals for Rent we had been practicing some dances for the bigger songs such as La Vie Boheme, I’ll cover you and Rent.  

When comparing this play with our work shopped of Rent, I feel as if pillow man was better on the basis that it was straight acting and that it was a dark comedy whereas Rent was a musical and more dance based. I felt as if when performing rent that I acted parts more than I sang, for example: when the song 'I'll cover you reprise' was being played, in rehearsals I was singing the song yet when the main performance occurred I ended up acting it out. 

Rent

Style

For our performance, we performed the musical in a rather classical way. By classical I mean that we performed Rent in a way that we stuck the basics with it. We sung the all the songs that we had chosen to perform and also we were keeping all the dramatic parts on the stage. If I could develop the style of Rent and change anything, I would strongly look into re writing the script slightly to make it less musical and straighter drama based. I think that this would be rather interesting as I feel that the audience could feel more involved with the play and also some scenes may be more emotional for the audience. E.g.: Angel’s funeral. Even though I think that it would be better with a bit of straight drama I think that there could be some background music that could be used so that it really helps build an atmosphere.

Location

As far as the location would be concerned, I think performing in a bigger theatre where there was more space to add props, set, sound and maybe allow more people to be involved with our workshop. However the only issue with doing this is that we would then have to form a budget and make sure that we don't over spend on any equipment etc. Also with having the budget is that we would then have to hire radio mics, MAC lights and maybe have to hold an audition for a bigger cast as I think that the stage will look really empty with the current amount of our cast.

Due to the fact that we would have to consider all of the above, we would then have to maybe consider having a budget as I don’t think that we could be able to just walk into a theatre and be able to perform the show straight away.

Video/Projection

As far as videos and projection would be concerned, I would say that I would like someone to go and video certain things or people in the cast as it’s something that I fund rather inspiring when watching the performance in the Broadway version and at the start of the unit, however when we started to really get into the rehearsals I think that we all forgot about the whole idea and it git left out for the performance. I also think that it would be interesting to have projection during the performance as I think that we could use the projection too show a location or what time of day or night.

Target Audience

I would like to think that the target audience would be different to our actual audience on the night of the show. When discussing what people in our audience thought about the show, I think that some people were unclear about the story. So because of this I think that it would be a wise idea to have an audience that actually know the musical and that would understand what happened even after we have cut everything out of it.

Sound

For the sound of the show, the speaker that we had was rather loud and I feel that with a pre-recorded soundtrack It was rather plain and we could have fallen out of time rather quickly. However If we done this show again, I would like to have a live band as it would be easier and it means that they can follow us instead of s following the song which means that it is less stress related.