Evaluation of Opening Night

Well after 6 months since we first found out what plays we would doing for our Common Ground season opening night came upon us. It was a very emotional experience for me to be honest. The culmination of three and a half years of hard work and the realisation of how far we've all come as a company was very overwhelming. During the moment where we stand and just radiate energy during side stretch I just felt very connected everyone around me and that we were going to have a really strong performance. So with mouse head on and the pre-set ready to start it was time to let the world finally see Enron.

Strangely I felt very calm before we started the show. I always thought I would be in absolute hysteria in fear that if I didn't deliver a strong enough performance I'd be letting so many people down. However I just knew I could rely on the all the work we'd put in rehearsal and as long as I just allowed myself to live through the role nothing could go wrong. Well as we predicted things did go wrong but our problem solving skills have been finely honed over this process. For instance I knew I set the kleenex in my pocket however during the scene I just couldn't find it. In hind sight I could've spent a little longer looking for it but instead I just said "no". I did this because I had complete faith in Olivia and her improvisation skills to be able to remain reactive to the situation. I was correct as in a moment of brilliance she took off my tie and used that instead. My jaw dropped as I couldn't believe that Claudia had really done this. This in turn gave me such fuel for the next scene as I had been so disrespected and this raw anger could just genuinely come out of me. This happy accident can only really happen if we can really trust in each other and I was so happy to be able to make a mistake and not ruin the play but rather add a greater moment to it. From the audiences reaction it definitely tightened the grasp we had on them.

In the running scene I felt like I was at my most playful. One specific moment I can remember is when I began to run backwards while I spoke to Andy. I'd never done this in rehearsals and didn't pre-plan this move I just felt in the moment like I wanted to show off and intimidate him a little more. I believe I must've been subconsciously following my objective. From audience feedback a lot of people really enjoyed this scene and thought the energy and pace was electrifying. I was very happy with this and would like to hopefully replicate it for all  performances.

As I wrote about in a previous post backstage discipline needed to be perfect however it was not and it came back to bite us in the butt. One of the mics was left on backstage and for a good time you could hear people talking. At this point I was on stage as a Raptor but I just remember the feeling of my blood turning cold and trying to desperately to keep in character. At one point I was tempted to wander off stage to go find the source but I knew that my death scene was about to come and couldn't risk. Honestly I was a little disappointed in this as it really had an effect on the way the audience would've seen the play. It was a real shame that it had to happen but at least now we can learn from our mistakes a let it never happen again.

In conclusion I was mostly happy with my opening night performance, I felt connected to the role I was playing throughout the performance and found parts to be playful in. For next show though I want to take the playfulness up even further and I want to be genuinely surprised by some of the choices I make. Onward and upwards!