solo reflection

The solo performances of the three students are all very impressive and inspiring. Livi’s performance is the most striking and intense to me, because her incorporation of lighting and sound effects really creates the tension throughout the show which successfully express her idea of theatre of cruelty. In detail, the flicking of lighting shows how chaotic and uneasy Laura feels inside, and the different colors of light symbolizes the different emotions including anger, sorrow, regret etc that she is going through. And I really like how simple and focused her setting is which allows the audience to fully pay attention to her movement and emotion.

 Linda’s show is simple but it expresses the ideology of the alienation between the audience and the play clearly. Her choice of applying the narrator not only reminds the audience that we are watching a fake show, but also constantly distance herself from the story that she is telling. And I think she definitely chooses everything that appears on the stage with clear reasons. For example, the lovely puppet clearly makes contrast to the dark story which creates an interesting dynamic and each puppet, according to her, symbolizes some characteristics of the character which express Brecht’s idea of symbolism. 

Willjam’s performance is strongly emotional which accords with Stanislavski’s theory of realism. His beginning was so intense although we didn’t see his actual image, we can feel his anger through the sound and the red light which creates an atmosphere of tense. But when he walked out of the room he suddenly sat on the ground, and the light changed to blue. His level and the light show how sad and desperate he is clearly. Also, when he was explaining about the dog, he was very close to the audience and it seems like he is making eye contact with the audience which allows the audience to fully “join in” the moment and relate to what Ed is going through.

Those performances are all successful and the audience can really tell how devoted and talented they all. As a theatre student, I have learnt more about what solo performance is and how should I approach it, also, the techniques they used and the director choices they made are very beneficial to learn.