Performance Analysis

We began our performance of Punk Rock by Simon Stephens at 6pm on 16th October 2013. Punk Rock was written and published in 2009. In the library of a grammar school in Manchester, seven sixth-formers (Tanya Gleason, Nicholas Chatman, Lilly Cahill, Cissy Franks, Chadwick Meade, Bennett Francis and William Carlisle) are preparing for their mock A Levels and nearing the end of their school lives. Punk Rock explores various sub-plots detailing the lives of a teenager in the modern society. Including: Broken homes, self harm, lying, smoking, sex, love triangles, new people, friendship groups, education and a school massacre.

As an actor/actress it was vital for us to carry out our roles naturally and to understand the truth behind each character and to deliver our lines as if they were all different and had a separate meaning. For the past eight weeks have worked on our characters thoughts, feelings, wants, background, how they look, how they act around certain characters and stage appearances including how they dress and come across to others including the audience. Our assignment was to deliver the truth and reality behind a school massacre and show each characters through the perspective of how we have interpreted them and incorporate what we have learned in the past eight weeks about our characters and the characters around us. Although we all had separate scenes and most people shared their roles in the different scenes we all worked together to produce an outstanding performance.

Special effects were carried out throughout the entire play. The audiences chairs were set up on the left and right hand sides of the room in a straight line and the main performance to place in the centre of the room, the effect of this was to have a more abstract feel on the play and to also view it in different areas to keep the audiences attention alert. The lights were set in the middle of the room where the main scene was however the entire room was still visible and each character sustained their role despite being in the spot light or not. Also significant music was played at the beginning and end of the performance, the music used was The White Stripes instrumentals played because this seemed to be a type of music that was enjoyed by most of the characters in the play and at one point was also spoken about by Lilly and Nicholas. It was also a top selling track in 2009 where this play was also published.

The Punk Rock music began to play (The white stripes) and each group walked through the left and right side doors acting in their character and walking with their group to their side of the room. We began to 'feel the music' by leg tapping and then beginning to dance. My character was Lilly Cahill, she was the new girl who had been moved around from school to school at her parents demand. In my scene Lilly was quite shy as it was her first day, however not completely shy as she was used to change despite how much she hated it. Therefore according to my characters thoughts and feelings when I danced, I depended on another character who I felt closer with and understood me. Suddenly, Doctor Harvey walked in and the music stopped and everybody became stagnant. Until a sudden outburst of scream took place and everybody was immediately in the scene of a shooting. Everybody had acted and believed they were in this scene amazingly as the scream and the movements all happened at the same time and worked together extremely well.

As each scene took place bouncing from either side of the room, the excess characters who were not playing were on their sides of the room acting as general school kids. If the excess characters were not looking at the scenes I believe this would have made the performance look even more realistic. Although the characters acted as if they were doing other things whilst the scenes were taking place it would have been more effective if all of them were doing different activities and all not watching the scenes.  Excess characters however were doing minor activities such as people reading, someone on a laptop studying, some on their phone, some eating and others just standing around. This was effective because although the spotlight was on one particular scene if the audience had ever lost focus or just glanced across the room they'd notice that they were still in a school atmosphere by looking at the other students.

The stage layout to our scene

My scene went extremely well. All characters played their roles correctly and the difference in each characters thoughts and feelings was shown outstandingly. Everybody remembered their lines and stage actions however also let some come naturally as we knew our characters by this point inside out. Everybody in the entire performance including my group spoke clearly and loudly, this also didn't destroy how our characters actually spoke their lines. Each line had a different feeling... Either it came from our heart, gut, feet, head or groin. It was vital that we all worked together well because if not then the scenes would not have run in unison with one another and also it would have been harder in the process of making the performance if we couldn't use teamwork effectively. This fortunately, was not a problem for our team.

Actions and gestures were used throughout the entire play. In the weeks heading up to the performance we never spoke about using actions and gestures as we believed it should come naturally to the character we already knew a lot about. The actions mirrored the plays meaning, for example when Nicholas kisses Lilly, the audience instantly knew that there was a closer relationship between them and this opened new doors as we saw that there was now a love triangle between Lilly, Nicholas and William.

The use of a school uniform really made the entire performance seem realistic. We all wore skirts/trousers and white school shirts with green ties. Some characters, however, had their own adjustments for example, Lilly in the first scene had a faux coat as William speaks about it in this scene. Also William in the first scene (the mental institute) doesn't wear a uniform and instead wears a tracksuit. Dr Harvey wears a formal dress and small heels (also in the mental institute). The effect of using costumes was to show the audience who the characters really were and how they were addressed by different characters, also, how they should be interpreted by the audience viewing the performance.

Uniform of Lilly Cahill and Cissy Franks

Using props made the scenes seem realistic and natural. People had to use props to explain what they were doing and how they were doing it. For example, in one scene Lilly showed William that she self harmed and in this case had to use a lighter which she needed to act as if she burnt herself.

Cuts were made during the script because they were not that important and didn't have much significance in what we really wanted to show. However, this I would of thought could have made it more confusing for the audience to catch onto the plot and meaning we were trying to mirror.

Our scene before it was annotated

Overall the audience seemed pleased with what we were capable of producing in eight weeks. They also seemed out standed by the level of focus we contriubuted to the entire play. There were only a few minor critiques made, however overall for a first performance produced in eight weeks including sessions on getting to know our characters and others around us we all did amazingly. It was a delight to work alongside many talented peers and I look forward to more in the future.

Class photo before the play