Shakespeare Insults Reflection

1. What did you learn about yourself as an actor watching your video that surprised you? Look at your face, hands, body and listen to your voice. Watch how you keep yourself open to the audience. 
Face: I felt like I used my face as one of the main parts of my body that showed my anger. I widened my eyes when Kestrel said her insults. I sometimes opened my mouth, but not in the exaggerated unbelievable way. I rolled my eyes in the beginning when I was annoyed with Kestrel and the tension and anger had just started to rise. I did this one thing when I was really angry I closed my eyes, crunched my fists, and shook my head, this was like the reaction that I get when I'm really angry and try not to explode on the person in front of me but when i open my eyes I'm still super furious. Hands & body: I also used my hands and body a lot. For example, I crossed my arms when I was trying to ignore and not appreciate Kestrel, but then when I heard her insult me, I reacted to it in the way that I would stomp over to her and get up in her face, trying to intimidate her. I stomped my feet when I got off stage at the end and one time when I was once stage to show that I was very angry. My body at that part transmitted my anger into stomping my foot. I also pointed my finger at Kestrel and pushed her when I was trying to teach her a lesson and when I was screaming at her. Voice: I feel like I did a good job using my voice to convey my feelings. I started off sassy and annoyed/frustrated. Then I would raise my voice and make it more serious showing that I was even more angry and was even more agitated. Then I would start screaming and putting emphasis on certain words that stood out and really were important to the insult. I would also describe her pausing in between descriptive words, to make the insult more intense and meaningful. For example, "thou are lack (pause) gall and (pause) pigeon (pause) liver'd!" I also carried the last word of my insults for a longer time, screaming it, and stressing it a for a little while longer.

2. How well are you conveying what you think you are conveying?
I felt like we did a pretty good job conveying what we thought we were conveying. We did a pretty job showing that I was a prisoner with high status who has been here a long time, and knows the rules of how to survive. Kestrel was the shy, new kid at prison, who just wanted to make friends and fit in no matter how that made her act. We didn't rush into our insults or take to long either. Also I felt like before the insults we did a pretty good job of starting to raise the tension a little bit and getting ready for the real action. Then once we started I felt like our anger was pretty believable and I like how in the end when Kestrel had a long insult, I stepped forward every part of the sentence, wanting to say something back, but she kept going and then pushed me back as she talked. I also felt like we did a good job conveying how the anger got bigger and bigger as the tension built up. The insults were also said in a way that put emphasis on certain words that stood out in the insults and made them more powerful. The setting was pretty clear as we had the work out station, and the bench behind, like we were in prison courtyard, the shirts that we were also helped give away the fact that we were in prison and not in a gym.

3. If this was someone else performing... what advice would you offer them?

• Maybe make it more clear on what I meant when I said, "I'm bigger than you". We were trying to convey the fact that even though I was smaller than her, but I still had a bigger ego, status, and existence in the prison.
• One time during the performance we went to the side of the stage for a couple seconds, so the audience couldn't see us that well.
• Kestrel's ending, conflicted a little bit with her character. In the ending she was angry and made me stomp of the stage and then she started to cry. I felt like the audience misunderstood this, as we were just trying to convey the feelings that you get when your angry: upset, frustrated, and sad. She was first angry with me, then frustrated and threw the work out equipment off stage, and finally she was sad and cried.
• When Kestrel bumped into me she was supposed to make like a big commission and really push me over, but since that didn't happen, the reason that I got angry might have been affected in a way. So she could've like feel on me or made more physical contact so that when I reacted it made more sense. But then since, the bump wasn't that big, I kind of made her angrier and the situation worse when I went up to talk to her. So I think that this helped the scene look more believable and more realistic.