Jabberwocky Critique

A) In what ways did their performance show originality?
I really loved how in the beginning it was like a fairy tale book. Three characters were lined up in three lights across the stage. The three characters stood firm, tall, and didn't move a muscle. Then someone came on stage and starting prancing around, creating the allusion that she was a fairy. I really like how acting like a fairy, sprinkling some fairy dust over the three characters bringing them to life. This was really unique and different to me and I would've never thought of that idea until now. I really enjoyed watching as the characters came to life, and how someone pranced on stage sprinkling fairy dust. It was really cool how she moved up and down the stage, around the characters, instead of just moving in one straight line as the sprinkled the dust. She also used different levels and crouched sometimes as she brought the characters to life. This scene reminded me of a fairy tale movie, like Cinderella, that starts off with a narrator reading out the first part of the story, "once upon a time, in a kingdom far away..." then they move into the actual story showing pictures and the characters soon come to life. In the ending scene, their group, did like a circle idea. What I mean is that in the end they repeated the idea of the fairy sprinkling dust and the characters coming out of the book. So the characters were back into their positions under the 3 lights, when someone pranced around them again, sprinkling dust, as the story ends and the characters go back into the story book, and freeze. Again this reminded me of a fairy tale movie, where they would end the movie and then they start to zoom out of the story, and all you can see is the lines from the story book, which the narrator reads out loud. Then once the lines are read and the story ends, the book closes, like how the lights went down. Keeping the idea of the story book, that same person that brought the characters to life, still acted as the narrator/writer throughout the performance. She came on and off stage narrating parts of the story, as the characters acted behind her. Once again, keeping with the idea of a story book. The narrator/writer is talking in movies as the characters act, but the characters still have dialogue that they say while they're performing. I also really loved how the narrator/writer said her lines like she was coming up with the story on the spot, and writing it down into a story book.

B) Watch the video- look at the lighting only. How did their lighting enhance/detract from their performance?
I feel like the lighting was nice and diverse. It used spotlights, backgrounds, shadows and cyc's. Again, I liked how in the beginning there were only three spotlight's on stage and a little bit of lighting on the full stage, so that we could see the girl bringing the characters to life. It really made the scene more powerful and interesting to look at. I also liked how this group had different backgrounds, for example they had a tree background, for the fighting scene and the tum tum tree. They also had a house background, for when the mother was talking to her daughter before she left to fight the fierce Jabberwocky. I also liked how instead of just putting a tree in the background, they added in a red cyc, this really added to the feeling of the scene. I left the fierce and scary Jabberwocky burbling up to the daughter ready to fight. They used a red cyc. Red symbolizes fire, danger, aggression, etc. In the second scene I liked how they used a light which created a shadowing effect on the characters. It made me feel like what the mom was telling the daughter was very important and he was very stern, serious, wary, and matter-of-fact. It made me feel like the mother knew what was set ahead for the daughter and that what she was going to do, wasn't going to be an easy task. Lastly, I liked how the writer/narrator stayed on stage for the whole performance with one light shining on her in down stage left, so that she could be seen, because her actions and what she was doing really added to the feeling of the overall performance as a story book. One thing that detracted from the performance, was when the lights stayed on and a actor ran off stage. It was right after the first scene ended and the Jabberwocky needed to get off stage. Instead of turning the lights off and having the Jabberwocky exit the stage. They kept the lights on which let everybody see the Jabberwocky run off stage. I'm not sure if the light person may have transitioned between scenes too fast or if that was intentional, but it just looked a little weird, and took away the magical feeling of fairy tale story book.

C) If you were part of this group, what would you do differently after viewing the video?
I feel like the theme/idea that the performers of this group had was really unique and imaginative. But, I do feel like the actors could've put in more of a effort when saying their lines. Some actors just said their lines so quickly without showing any real emotions, or stopping at any points. This made the story flow well, but it kind of took away from the feeling of the scenes and story. In one scene someone is fighting the Jabberwocky and she's talking at a rhythm for the whole time, instead of maybe pausing at parts, or saying it with a heavy breath, since she was fighting with a "vorpal" sword. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but right before the fighting scene, the Jabberwocky stepped on stage too early, when the narrator was still saying, "so rested she by the tum tum tree, and stood a while in thought." But, the Jabberwocky did understand that they made a mistake and got off stage, only coming on till it was the correct time. Also as I said above, about their lighting, right after the first scene, the Jabberwocky exited the stage when the lights were still on and the person wasn't in character till she got off stage, so it looked a little funky. Other than some of these problems I really loved the idea of writing a story book as the performance progressed, it was really unique. I loved how the writer/narrator acted like she was thinking of a story while she was saying her lines and really made me believe that she wrote the script. I also like how she moved her hand to the lines when the daughter said, "one, two, one, two, and through and through" when she was slaying the Jabberwocky, it was a really cool use of interesting body language that enhanced the piece.

D) Where you more or less critical of this group than yourself? Why?
I feel like I was pretty critical for both, but sometimes when your performing something using a script like this which you could do anything with, you might not execute your ideas properly. What I mean is that my group and me might've understood and thought that parts of our performance were clear, when the audience might not have gotten it. That's why it's good to perform in front of an audience for feedback and then learn from it and integrate the advice into your piece. I do feel that I might've been more critical towards myself than towards this group. I think that I was more critical towards myself because once I look at myself perform, I see things differently than what I thought I did on stage. Whether it's good or bad, I like seeing how I act during my performances so that I can learn from it. Also if I'm a tough critic towards myself then I can integrate what I saw to do and not to do when I'm performing to the next time I'm on stage. I think that the reason why I wasn't as tough on this group is because I don't really know them, I don't know how they think, and I don't 100% know if some things that I might've said to work on or to fix if they wanted it to be an intentional part of their piece. For example, I might've thought that the writer/narrator was sprinkling salt on the characters, this would've been weird to me. But maybe in their perspective of the script and in their minds they were sprinkling fairy dust. So basically, I learn from seeing myself perform and what works and what doesn't, but I don't want to critique people too much when I don't 100% know what they were trying to aim for in their performance.