The Dead is a musical adaptation based on the short story The Dead from the collection Dubliners written by James Joyce. The play begins with an annual Christmas party, where a family and their friends are chatting, singing, dancing and having dinner, but at some given moments, more and more epiphanies come out from people’s minds. The surface of the world of play is filled with peacefulness, but underneath that, is only the endless sorrow left.
The great comparison existing between the two extremes was vividly showed throughout the actors’ performance. Although I did not have a background information about this story nor the author, by watching only the actors, I can be brought into the story and empathize with the characters. I did learned many acting skills, which can be applied into my final performance. The first thing I caught up from the show was that the actors never increase their speed of speaking. They may slow down their speed or change their volume while expressing different kinds of feelings. Take the main character Gabriel Conroy, who was acted by John, as an example. Approaching the end of the play, where Gabriel Conroy’s epiphany comes, I would say that is his climax. He saw how his wife was crying for a lost love, who died for her, but he never heard about. At that given moment, his minds must be stirred with anger, disappointment, sorrow and confusion. However, when he said the last line “the world … is like the surface …”, he slowed down his speed, every single word was clearly throw out, which somehow strengthened the character’s feelings. That was the skill I need to learn: not rush to say the lines for expressing Juliet’s hopeless at that situation, but oppositely slow down and magnify the intensity. More than that, the many body language was another acting skills I learned. Both from the first rehearsal and the second run through’s feedbacks, our lack of body language was always mentioned. And this time, I saw how important the need of body language is from watching the play. It is like the best and easiest way to convey the actors’ emotions to the audience. For example, in the last scene where Gretta Conroy suddenly sank into sadness, and her husband tried to comfort her. Although, sometimes, I did not really understand some specific lines, but when John knelt upon one knee, and gently pated his wife’s back, his body language just directly told me that he tried to comfort her. That kind of physical touch can be exactly applied in our performance, when Friar tried to comfort Juliet. I would talk with my partner Marinda to add a series of these body language into our scene.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience of watching the fall play. I pretty enjoyed being brought into the scene and learned many great lessons from the actors’ amazing performance.
The great comparison existing between the two extremes was vividly showed throughout the actors’ performance. Although I did not have a background information about this story nor the author, by watching only the actors, I can be brought into the story and empathize with the characters. I did learned many acting skills, which can be applied into my final performance. The first thing I caught up from the show was that the actors never increase their speed of speaking. They may slow down their speed or change their volume while expressing different kinds of feelings. Take the main character Gabriel Conroy, who was acted by John, as an example. Approaching the end of the play, where Gabriel Conroy’s epiphany comes, I would say that is his climax. He saw how his wife was crying for a lost love, who died for her, but he never heard about. At that given moment, his minds must be stirred with anger, disappointment, sorrow and confusion. However, when he said the last line “the world … is like the surface …”, he slowed down his speed, every single word was clearly throw out, which somehow strengthened the character’s feelings. That was the skill I need to learn: not rush to say the lines for expressing Juliet’s hopeless at that situation, but oppositely slow down and magnify the intensity. More than that, the many body language was another acting skills I learned. Both from the first rehearsal and the second run through’s feedbacks, our lack of body language was always mentioned. And this time, I saw how important the need of body language is from watching the play. It is like the best and easiest way to convey the actors’ emotions to the audience. For example, in the last scene where Gretta Conroy suddenly sank into sadness, and her husband tried to comfort her. Although, sometimes, I did not really understand some specific lines, but when John knelt upon one knee, and gently pated his wife’s back, his body language just directly told me that he tried to comfort her. That kind of physical touch can be exactly applied in our performance, when Friar tried to comfort Juliet. I would talk with my partner Marinda to add a series of these body language into our scene.
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