Evaluation of York Performance of 'Remote'

 

Throughout the production of this performance, I thought that I have struggled with my character. I was trying to make my character bigger and really bring it to life through my performance. I found this difficult because I don’t have many lines and then the lines, I did have I struggled to make sense of them in the context of the play. As time went on, I started to understand the words I was saying instead of just saying them by rote. This play represents for me one of the best lessons I have had on this course. I have learnt to think more deeply about my acting because I found it so difficult to act out this part to what I know my ability is.

On the night of our performance for the National Theatre in York, we had to prepare to perform in a new space. This space was smaller than I imagined it to be. However, I actually enjoyed this sense of closeness as it made the production seem livelier, easier to move around and space out. While we were preparing, I realised I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. All I was doing was thinking through my role and making sure I knew what was going on. To perform for the National Theatre is a very big opportunity not just for me but for everyone in my class.

As the performance went on, I tried my hardest to make sure everything I did was right in terms of my lines, movement and highlighting my character to the audience. I truly wanted to bring ‘AJ’ to life and to do the story justice.  Nevertheless, I do believe that during this particular performance of the play that I lost some of my characterisation due to me concentrating to hard on making sure I got my lines correct. I just think that I could have done better in bringing out the bullying of my character for this performance. I was slightly disappointed in myself for letting my nerves about my memory get the better of me, rather than focusing on my acting. Of course, I may be wrong and am just being overly critical of myself. In spite of this I felt that the performance was great. The whole cast did a fantastic job and I thought for many of the cast it was their best performance of the play yet by far. I was very happy and proud to be part of such an amazing team of actors. To see how far we had all come from the beginning of the year and even the beginning of the production (from not understanding the play and struggling to bring the character to life, to this performance and overcoming that struggle.) truly made my night.

My work on the whole throughout the entire two months on this project has been a long and hard road. Yet it has all paid off in the end to have such an amazing experience with my crew in such esteemed places like the York Theatre. This gave all of the class the experience of what our futures could be like, even if we don’t end up making it to London, I’m still proud of the work we have done. This has definitely helped me to realise who I am as an actor, what it’s like to be a professional actor and how a career on acting might truly be.