Faustus Performance Evaluation

Here is a video of our performance of Doctor Faustus:

I was very pleased with my performance. I found it more challenging to learn the lines as they were written in a way I am not used to. However I remembered them all and I think I did well. 


STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Strengths:    
The staging of our performance was visually interesting and different. Instead of everyone walking on and off stage for our scenes, we all remained on stage for the entire performance. When we were not performing we were standing on a stage block and when it was our scene we went into the centre of the stage. Another strength of this setting is that we did not stand in chronological order of scenes which made it unpredictable. 

The lighting was very simple which meant the audience could focus more on the action rather than being distracted by changing lighting. The blackouts also established the beginning and end of each scene

Weaknesses
I feel that the all black costumes stopped the audience from being able to differentiate the story between each scene. For instance my scene was about businesswomen so I would have liked to have worn a suit to represent this. If another group's scene was about a drug addict they could have worn a hoodie and ripped jeans and have make up to make them look like an addict, instead you could not tell between either character very easily. However a strength of the costumes is that it allowed the people on the blocks to mix in with the backdrop and not be noticed too much.

I feel like I rushed my lines as I was very worried about them. I need to learn to slow down and pace myself to make my acting seem more reliable.

I think I could have improved on my mime. My group had envy so I acted quite vain whilst Catrina looked at my clothes, hair etc and cried. Perhaps we both should have been jealous of each other so it was more clear we were representing envy instead of vanity.

If we had more time I think we should have choreographed the part where the angels bring me jewels into more of a dance, which was our original idea. If this was a bigger project we could have had music and more than two dancers to make it look really effective as if Mephistopheles is persuading and bribing Faustus into making the deal. It also would have contrasted with the rest of our scene.