Evaluation 30/04/2015

Overall evaluation of performance evaluation

List of all the multimedia used in the performance

·         Music

·         Projectors

·         Lights

·         Videos

Multimedia enhanced the overall performance as it enabled us to give the audience to view theatre in a different perspective literally. The idea that a performer was able to communicate with another performer that might not even be speaking from that present moment but from something that was recorded a couple weeks earlier is what makes it so excited and different.

I think that the impact the multimedia had on the audience was that it helped them feel more a part of what was going on. By having all these different uses of multimedia such as visual effects and lighting as well as live performance, it gave them an opportunity to feel as if they were there themselves.  The multimedia also helped to engage the audience to the performance as for a lot of members watching, hadn’t seen theatre performed with multimedia before so it meant that they wanted to know more about  the ways we chose to use multimedia in the performance,  as well as what was going to happen next.

I believe that it’s hard to say whether or not the final performance would’ve still been as effective without multimedia as such a big chunk of our performance did involve it. If multimedia wasn’t involved in the performance, we would’ve had to think of other ways of presenting the play to the audience and as I don’t know how that would’ve been presented I cannot really say. However I do believe that without the use of multimedia, the final performance wouldn’t have had that touch of uniqueness in the way that we chose to use our multimedia. The multimedia unlocked a perspective that gave the audience a different eye to view things with.

I believe that the most effective moment of multimedia, was when the first chorus was performed from outside whilst the audience viewed it from upstairs in the theatre room and music was being played through the speakers. I say this because viewing this chorus from upstairs made it seem as if the performers were at quite a distance (which they were) however having the music played from the room they were viewing it made it seem far but extremely close at the same time. Along with this the music (the speech/verse)  being played at the same time was also our voices prerecord so this so this factor also plays along with us being far and close at the same time. The multimedia used in the chorus was effective because all the voices put together were very strong and powerful and we ourselves represented that with the movement in our physicality.

 

Overall the performance was a success and I believe that as a performer, I was able to develop my understanding in terms of performing my first promenade piece. Along with that, I had never before thought of ways in which I could incorporate multimedia in theatre. This also gave me an opportunity to widen my knowledge in ways that I could understand how to use multimedia to enhance theatre performances. Most importantly I have been able to truly realise how important it is to keep our history in theatrical aspects and use past theatre plays from as early on as Greek theatre to show modern audiences today how they presented emotions and their stories. The way in which I found myself relating to so many of the problems characters had faced surprised me as I never thought about how closely related the problems that we sometimes face can be to each other. All of the historical context behind this clearly and strongly shows that no matter how new or old a piece of theatre is, history always repeats itself.