Blog week 13

How did your monologue performance go? How did you improve from your scene? What do you think was the strongest aspect of your performance? What was the weakest? How do you think this monologue performance demonstrates growth in your acting overall?

I think my monologue performance went pretty well, however I think there was definitely room for improvement.  I had always rehearsed this monologue sitting in a chair or a desk, but as I was sitting in class watching everyone else’s performances, I thought it would be interesting to try the performance with no tables or chairs, and to just be sitting on the floor.  As fictional character Solid Snake once said to a naive and young Revolver Ocelot, “Testing a technique you’ve only heard about in the middle of battle wasn’t very smart.”  I knew if I wanted to perform sitting on the floor, I should have rehearsed it first to get the feel of it, but I just felt that it would work.  And it probably would have worked even better if I had rehearsed it that way, as I realized when I was sitting there.  I felt like I was a little awkward with my drink can, I kept setting it down, and would forget when I was supposed to take a drink, until I was supposed to. I then would pick up the can and instantly drink from it, which I felt was a little awkward.  But I think I did a decent job performing tipsy.  I would hiccup at times where Austin would repeat himself, it just felt natural.  When Tasi asked later if I did that on purpose, I said no, but that was because in my head I thought she was asking if it was an accident.  I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true.  I think this performance has displayed growth in my overall acting because I didn’t rush through my lines as hardcore as I usually do.  I noticed myself getting nervous around the first “tooth laying on the mattress” line.  Usually my response to this feeling is to speed through everything awkwardly to get back to my seat faster.  But somehow this time I just thought to myself, “Dude, chill,” and it worked.  I never had a fear of public speaking until I took a course on public speaking in 2013.  We first learned all the ways people get nervous and why they get nervous when speaking in public, and why such a huge majority of people get nervous. Then we gave our first speeches, after learning how everyone is terrified, I got up in front of everyone and suddenly got the dry mouth and fast heartbeat we had learned about.  I knew I had learned to fear this, since I took a public speaking class in high school in summer school, where they never taught us why people are nervous or that people are nervous, and I did fine.

TL;DR: I think I may have overcome my recently learned fear of public speaking.