Evaluation- Blood Brothers

                         Blood Brothers- Evaluation

I played mrs Lyons in cast one and we performed two shows. We start of the day will a full run through which I think makes us feel confident about it and sure what we’re doing. If we don’t have a run through the first show would just feel like a dress rehearsal and when we’ve got people paying and taking the time out of their day you want to at least give them a good show, so the rehearsal takes the edge off. It also shows you that if something goes wrong you can keep going. For the first show I think my performance went good. I didn’t mess up any of my lines so I was really happy with that. I also felt very in the character and present which made my performance feel better to me. Finally I’ve learned how to project my voice and the feedback was that my projection was good which is so so so nice to hear after having problems with it this whole year, that made me feel really confident. I really enjoyed working with Emie, I think we bounced off each other a lot, when we were in scenes together we’d always Mach each other’s energy to give it a nice flow. We both played desperate mothers but in completely different ways, I think we did a good job of showing the opposite scales of a woman’s life in 1963. I worked really hard on trying to make my character seem manipulative and people have said that you could see that in the show. On our first show I feel like it wasn’t as good as the second show because the audience was small and quiet. There were quite a few lines dropped because we were all quite nervous. There was a scene Geoffrey accidentally cut out but in the end it all turned out fine because we’re always  listening and thinking on the spot how we can save scenes so nobody noticed anything was wrong. I do think that we were all way more into it in the second show because the audience was loud and energetic. Something that I found quite hard was trying to do a serious scene whilst the audience is still laughing because a lot of my scenes where with Edward and I always had to be angry right after he said a joke. I still managed to do it but it did Take Me Out of the moment a little bit at some points which made me feel quite disappointed but now I feel like I’ve learned a lot under this has definitely helped me improve as an actor. Because we were all nervous and a scene was cut out, we had to quickly change some things around in the interval so the narrator could do his monologue. I think it’s really helpful that we know how to quickly change things around to make the show go on and I think it shows how professional we are. I really tried to slowly show the audience how Mrs Lyons was being consumed by her own fears and anxiety before her  breaking point at the end. Me and Kelly ,the director, thought it would be good If by the end Mrs Lyons had switched out tea cups for wine glasses instead. Since her husband died and she’s constantly filled with fear and paranoia and now that Edwards moved out we thought she will have started drinking a lot more and that’s another thing that could add to what drove her to kill them. In the first show there was quite a long gap well Henry was waiting on the stage for Geoffrey Because he was getting changed, Henry made it look fine by tying his shoe laces but it did make it feel like we were waiting for something so later on for the second show we changed Geoffrey’s costume to be a lot quicker to change into. This is another example of how we were professional because we could quickly change it and no one even realised. I really love the scenes at the beginning of the show where Mickey and Eddie first meet because in the second show they had the whole audience laughing constantly, and it was so full of energy. They really seemed like they’d gone into the mines of seven year olds and the really worked off the audiences laughter and made it even funnier. In the show I did my final scene where I killed the brothers completely different to how it rehearsed it I usually acted quite crazy but more in a way well I didn’t understand reality and I still did that but I made her seem quite psychotic as well. A few people came up to me and said they love the ending because I really seemed like I was going to kill them. Even Kelly  which made me happy came over to me and said but she liked the ending and that was a psycho which made me happy and proud. I asked a few people for feedback so here’s what they said. ‘I really really enjoyed the show and I think it absolutely flew by Because everybody was just so into it and it was really funny. But then I also liked the second half because I was really captured by the story. Sienna I thought you seemed really desperate and manipulative at the beginning and that was so fun to watch and then at the end I got a shock when you came walking in with the gun because I really thought you’re gonna kill Mrs Johnstone For telling them the truth, then I was gutted when you actually killed the twins. You did a brilliant job of turning her into a mad woman.’ another said ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you because you just seemed so real and emotional and I felt like I could just see Mrs Lyons gradually crumble apart.’ I really loved this feedback because it made me feel really proud, they mentioned everything I’d been working on. I do feel like I could have reacted a lot better when Mickey came to my house and they said that they were Blood Brothers that were born on the same day, but because I was too busy thinking about whose line was next I kind of didn’t give enough thought about that and that was a good moment for me to react as well but I did react to it just not right in that moment but I don’t think anybody noticed as nobody said anything about it and like I said I god do ac whole scene reacting to just that but I think in the moment I couldn’t given it more. That’s an example of why you should always be listening and reacting in a scene.

Now I’m really excited for Because I think I’ve broke through an emotional box I kept myself in and I’m capable of playing main characters. I used to be really afraid to shout in scenes or just in general because I’m a very quiet person but now I actually find power in shouting in scenes and I feel like it just opened up another world. I’ve played so many different characters this year like the difference between Violet Beauregard and Mrs Lyons is so big and I feel so proud that I’ve managed to play them both Blood Brothers has really helped me figure out how to create a character to be one thing after you’ve already seen it played by a different actor but with a different storyline because when we went to watch the show before Mrs Lyons didn’t kill the kids so I had to create my own reason for that and my own way to do it which made me feel really independent and even more proud when people compliment it I think that was the scene I was most excited for Cos there’s just so much you could do with it and there was so much depth in it. I really liked that it was Emily and Tamara that will play in the other Mrs Lyons because we’re all friends so it’s set and talk about scenes together and help each other and it was good because in the end our Mrs Lyons was still completely different to one another while still being  that Mrs Lyons that Willy Russell wanted it to be. Being Mrs Lyons in the 60s seventies and 80s was really really interesting to play and you never really got bored of it because each scene was completely different to the next and I don’t think Mrs Lyons has a boring scene to play. I feel like at the beginning she was breezy and young and then when she was still 30 she’d already changed to be more serious and worried because she didn’t really have much to worry about before being a higher class housewife she did however worry about not being all the things her husband wanted it to be because she couldn’t fulfil the main duty Of being a woman in those days which was to give your husband A child that’s why she had to time it perfectly so the husband would think it was really hard because she knew he would never accept somebody elses kid we know this from the line ‘I wanted  to adopt but Mr Lyons is well he says he always wanted a child of his own not someone else’s I have a believe in adopted child can become ones Own’. Choose also really desperate for the child because she’d always wanted to be a mother other middle class girl in those days not something you expected to be and to see all the women around having children she will become so jealous of them. I think she was also very jealous of Mrs Johnston for having so many kids and I’m guessing she hated that she was jealous of somebody that was lower than her all this information really changed the way I played it from when I first read the script just knowing all these things gives it so much depth. I think all the kids had a lot of chemistry whether it be Mrs johnston’s kids or Mickey Eddie and Linda, It just seemed like that all been friends for a long time which really really adds to the scene  And show.  I think Jamie did a really good job as Sammy because he just dedicated himself fully to the character and went all out every time whether it was rehearsals all the actual show, I think Sammy really fitted him because it’s kind of what is like in real life very boisterous and he did it with so much energy. I also think Trinity put a lot of effort in all the time but she was good too because the ensemble need to be put in just as much effort to make it work and I think they really  where.  I think Henry did a really good job in the monologue because he added so much energy in life to it and he had the audience laughing the whole time, he also did a really good job in the scenes where he’s older and angry because he doesn’t translate being mad to shout in you can really see that he’s thinking about what you sayin another is really emotional for him but just because he’s supposed to be angry he does a lot more than shout sometimes being quieter in an angry scene can be more powerful but when it fit he shouted which is the perfect combination. I think you can also tell Geoffrey  Understood his character because he did things that weren’t in the script but fully suited Edward and made the whole audience laugh. One of my favourite scenes of Edward is when he gets on the horse and rides away because it does it but is still completely the character and it’s just so effortlessly funny I think  Harley  Had quite a sinister twist on the narrator which made him really interesting to work with I loved the connexion between the narrator and Mrs Lyons because I felt like it just added a lot more depth to it and also made things make more sense it also makes you wonder a lot about the characters for example is Mrs Lyons evil or is she just desperate is she doing it out of love or out of spite was the narrator her inner thought is he really a devil that was controlling her And a lot of these questions never get answered It makes people so much more interested because the show genuinely leaves it  to  your interpretation. I’ve loved this show, I feel like I’ve grown and learned so so much and I cannot wait to see which shows we’ll be doing in the future and I’m going to try my hardest to get lead roles because I feel like I’m capable, this show has given me so much confidence.