'Like There's No Tomorrow' Performance Evaluation

 My performance in ‘Like There Is No Tomorrow’.

The LTNT Workshop occurred just before we watched our performance for the National Theatre in ‘Like There Is No Tomorrow’. The workshop started off by discussing how we were feeling now we have recorded our performance? As well as how were we feeling now we were about to watch it back?  We also talked over what were we looking forward to about the performance. The conversation naturally evolved into speaking about our journey that we went through in order to make this piece come to life. All the challenges that we encountered to even be able to come together to record the play and send it in. Including another lockdown and our respective restrictions due to Covid-19. How we overcame these challenges, mainly through the changing of law and twice weekly Covid testing so that we could actually work together. Nevertheless, we managed to make it work. In my opinion we even made it work extraordinarily well.

Moving on from our challenges we reminisced on the fun we had throughout the process of making this performance and our memories thereof. The bond we created as a cast was of particular note, perhaps it was because of our shared experiences of the past year. How different our lives had become and the shared challenge not to let a pandemic stand in the way of producing a great performance, allowing this bond to come to fruition.

Furthermore, the workshop then progressed into our own work. How did we feel about our individual characters and did this change as the play progressed in its planning and direction? I did not really feel any great connection to my character, of a campaigner at first, mainly due to them being an antagonist. However, as I was developing my character this did change slightly, by creating a clear background and motivation I allowed myself to step into my character’s shoes and gain a connection that was not previously there. Following on from this we considered body language and how important it is. The way body language can tell an audience so much of your character and how we demonstrated in the performance our understanding of it. Did our performance show that we knew about body language and considered it when creating our characters?

I believe I did this in my character, the campaigner. This is because when creating my character, I decided that he was someone who was looking to climb the corporate ladder and felt quite confident in his ability to do so and this is reflected in my body language. My stances were confident, head held high and back straight to convey this. If my character was slumped or always talking with his head down without eye contact, this would convey to the audience either someone who was shy or uninterested in their job.

Lastly, we concentrated about how the world could be better, after all this is what the play is based on. We were presented the sentence “The world would be a better place if…” and we had to think of what we would say in response to that statement. What do we think would make the planet a better place? For example, a few people talked about how we treat the environment and climate change. The fact that we need people to act now in order to save our planet, not just people but the larger corporations that seem to run our world. I brought up about the way we treat each other, how we need to listen and respect other people’s views. At the end we were all wished well, with the best of luck for the competition and hoped we would enjoy our performance of ‘Like There Is No Tomorrow’.

Upon watching our classes performance of ‘Like There Is No Tomorrow’ by Tom Wells for the National Theatre. I found this play amazing to watch, perform and even film. I loved every second! When I look back, I am so glad  that I researched  and engaged with the whole play and did not just focus solely on my character. Indeed, this better understanding of the whole script and it's story, truly helped build my own performance. It helped me to know what I wanted to do with my character. Nevertheless, I also looked at some actual campaigns that have happened in the past to help with this. For example, I looked at Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, this is similar to the campaign in the play, in the sense that Bobby is not the best person in the world and doesn’t really want to make the world better. So, I used the interviews of similar people in his campaign to base my character on. I used these ideas to develop my character into someone who is arrogant and a bit of a 'know it all'. Someone who looks down on anyone that does not agree with what they are planning for the city, whom would either try and persuade them and if that didn’t work to simply move on to the next person because they were not worth my time. My character would see the need to move on quickly because every new person I speak to could be a new voter. I decided to perform my character as a cocky man, who thought he was better than everyone else. I think that came across well in my facial expressions and body language throughout the play. I especially love the scene where I grab the pens out of my pocket and used that to get rid of the children that were arguing with us about our plans for the future. I believe this scene really encapsulated my character’s personality and all the research and work I had put in to creating him.

To Watch 'Like There's No Tomorrow' Please Click Here!