Now the module is over and I have completed my performance and watched everyone else’s. I feel it poignant to comment on how incredibly independent this module makes you feel; it has the power to torture you at certain moments, creative and rehearsal process etc. Nonetheless, it has the power to fill you with a strong sense of self achievement within yourself and your acting ‘community’ if you will.
Nobody said that creating a piece of theatre would be easy, especially when we have such icons to look up to; Eric Bogosian, Amy Taubin, Spalding Gray etc. It is always our aim to tick a box and get graded a specific way, to reach our highest potential. However, when artists are introduced to us, we suddenly lose sight of the grading system and performance date and just lose ourselves in their work. Looking at their similarities and differences between both one-another and that of our own ideas and ethos.
This varied focus then; allows us to create and devise our own pieces by mismatching their original ideas, ethos, focus, movement, connection, emotion, message. Our performance then takes on our own form of expression and then is moulded to create a structure or sequence; this sequence follows a specific guideline that only we can navigate to take us from lights up to applause. It is at this most fragile moment that we suddenly see what our hard work has been building up to. Not appreciation [although we enjoy it], not a grade [although we need it] but our own sense of importance and independence.
Looking back at my final performance, I would have changed nothing. Yes, I went a little fast and the cues weren’t quite on time and some of the jokes didn’t connect with the audience as I’d have liked. But, I devised it myself, I edited it myself, I rehearsed by myself, I performed by myself and lastly, I am proud of myself. This then was my final performance, and as much as other artists could influence me and guide my structure or narrative, this was my piece and I am very proud.