Friday 1 March 2013

Unit 1 Part C: reserch and review

The Secret Diary Of A Teenage Queer.



On 7th February I attended the matinee performance of 'The Secret Diary Of A Teenage Queer'. It was one of only two showings performed by the Art With A Heart company at Contact Theatre, Manchester. Performed in a small studio theatre in front of an audience of approximately 40 people the three actors were almost close enough to touch. Although at first I thought that the play would be boring and uncaptivating I found it to be enthralling throughout.

At the start of the performance the house lights went down and there was around a minute of silence before two characters stormed onto the stage, yelling at each other. This immediately grabbed the attention of the audience. As she pretended to read out her diary entries our eponymous heroine looked into the audience, breaking the fourth wall, an acting technique developed by Brecht which forms a bond between character and audience.

The props where kept to a minimum. There was a table with three mugs, a tatty settee, a large black bag and a few cardboard boxes containing the main character's childhood belongings including her teenage diaries. The actors used on stage costume changes to represent going backwards or forwards in time from the present day to the main character's teenage years. I did not think that with such basic and simple set and props the performance would be good, but I was wrong.

All the characters were portrayed as having selfish attitudes, being completely self absorbed and unable to see the points of view of the others. The actors used suspense throughout the performance which created an atmosphere of tension. There were times when they talked over each other, overlapping their dialogues and creating a sense of realism. It was evident that occasionally the actors had forgotten their lines creating a pause, but this came across as natural, as it does in real life.

Throughout the performance there were moments that made the audience cry with laughter, immediately followed by an extremely serious and poignant moment that would have us crying with emotion. We all experienced a roller coaster of emotions in a matter of seconds. The way that the play was performed the audience would feel one very strong emotion and would then be feeling the opposite emotion only seconds later. There was no apparent technique used to achieve this effect other than the fact that with only two actors ever on stage at any time they were completely focused on each other and their timing was perfect.

My personal opinion of 'The Secret Diary Of A Teenage Queer' is that although it is about the struggles of being gay and a teenager anyone who has been a teenager can relate to the subject whether they are gay or straight. Each of the three characters had very strong and unchanging attitudes towards homosexuality. The main character was confused and tried to conform to society's idea of 'normal'. Her father accepted her being a lesbian but did not accept that she and her civil partner wanted to have a child together. Her best friend at school was convinced that she would grow out of her gayness and become like her. The acting was outstanding and although there were only three characters and very basic props the actors showed that a big budget or large cast is not necessary in order to make a performance effective.

Before watching this play I was reluctant to sing with confidence in front of an audience but after seeing the energy of the actors as they sang, danced and made fools of themselves on stage I am now aware that I can not afford to be self conscious if I want to become an actor and that an actor needs to learn to laugh at themselves. In addition I learnt from this performance that if an actor forgets a line they can easily cover up with an ad lib. The use of overlapping of speech over the top of another character's conversation creates a realistic effect and I thank the cast of 'The Secret Diary Of A Teenage Queer' for helping me to get over my shyness and fear in this area.

1 comment:

  1. This is a great review Demi, I feel as though I was there myself! I alway love to see different ways of using stage set and props, there are some really clever and creative set designers out there. It is good to see that the performance had a positive effect on you and your acting.

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