IB LRRH Grop Evaluations

Evaluations of Little Red Ridding Hood Performances

March 2, 2012

Tony, cheo wan, Daniel, Katy….

    Things I liked!

I thought that the sounds used (the water flowing, the chops by the knifes, the sound of the kettle on fire) were very good ways of introducing the action taking place in the kitchen,  as it was easy to relate to previous sound of making food. Also, the repetition of this sound I thought gave a monotonour, functional sense, descrining the insipid routine of the villagers life.

I thought that Tony’s choice of interpretation of the mother was effective- he kept a masculine, low and harsh tone of voice when talking to Cheo Wan, he adopted a manly body posture using sharp strong movements and was very tough  when talking to her. I noticed that he didn’t try to be feminine in any way, but however this was a good way of introducing conflict of feelings and relationships as well a the conflict between men and women in a clever way. He was trying to show also the contrast of personal characteristics between characters making Chaeo Wan the victim. As well as this, they took a lot of artistic liberties when narrowing down the script, and a lot of the lines they used (e.g. Dialogue between Tony and Chaeo Wan) was not included by the dramatist in the script, however I personally didn’t mind as I was intrigued about in what direction they would take it and how they would make it their own.

The ending of the piece was very powerful as it showed the change in to evil, as Little Red Riding Hood acted as a nice, innocent, delicate little girl and that quick changed made us feel like we had been betrayed by her since the start of the performance. She broke the fourth wall and used the dramatic teqnique of “Aside” to address us with an evil smile of satisfaction, while having blood in her hands was an successful way of transmitting us that she is really demonic, although no one else knows it.

Snapshot of the fighting scene with Daniel as the wold and Cheo Wan and LLRH

Things I disliked
Their fight scene was very quick and sudden, and lacked impact with sound,  and use of lightening.  They had no expected music, no empowering music, and therefore the scene lost its strength, and the fight movements were very stiff from the wolf, as although he might have been interpreted as a man like in ours, that feeling of hunger, incest, need to attack and aggressiveness wasn’t there. Also it wasn’t engaging as the time in between (the gap of silence) was too vast and it lost power, its “Adrenaline”.

Their use of ironic music used for the beating of the grandmother wasn’t effective as although it made us giggle, it wasn’t suitable to the seriousness of the play even if they where trying to create a contrast of tone and rhythm.

 The Video

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZbyrBtCySQ&list=WLB1250EC59495135D&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Juliana, Lloyd, Katy, Amanda….

Things I liked

I specially loved their use of multimedia, as I think they really contributed as potent dramatic values to their piece.

To create a effective sense of people living in the area, ignoring that they were only 3 actors, they used the scrim and the spotlight to their advantage beautifully, mixed with effective characterization of the physicality’s of each minor character from the village, as every time they passed they would adopt a different posture. The scrim was used well as although it is of a transparent substance, when the yellow light was thrown ontop of it from behind it became opaque, showing the silhouette of the actors. For example Lloyd went from being a slow walking old man to a woman wearing a long dress and walking fast. This I thought, along with the fresnel light with graduated lens that threw a yellowish soft  and defocused beam of light  giving a strong impression of a sick, scared village, as they also chose not to show any relationships between the characters, which made me thought that everyone was very reserved from the very start. The church noises helped give a sense of urgency, as if it was time to go home and the rain illustrated a rainy, cold village which also helped the audience get into that sinister setting.

Juliana and Katy as the mother and daughter from behind the scrim

To show levels and age, they used the scrim one again very cleverly making Katy much smaller that Juliana (the mother), and what I really liked was their play of projections and shadows, introducing themselves as characters, as this allowed then to quickly change into other characters just by adopting another physicality and wearing something different. It was also interesting to see how they chose to introduce symbolic props  to us, the audience, by again holding the sword, which gives the audience straight away a strong sense of danger foreshadowed, s the mother gave the sword with our acting to her little daughter.

For the next time, I noticed that the picture of the forest helped me so so much when getting into the setting, and it made me realize that sometimes you don’t need very complex installations to help your audience understand where you are, as this was a simple projection but yet I really enjoyed being taken there with out the need of imagining my own.

What I specially loved was the recurring music they used, which turned our to be expected music as they kept introducing it in the scenes. As katy sang it, it was diegetic and it gave a stronger sense of truth and closeness to her character that I thought made her seem very vulnerable, and the melody of the song was slow, like a lullaby, that I think was excellently used to contrast the fight scenes, violent lighting of red and Orage as well as the aggressive screams.

Things I disliked

Although I liked the timings they used from scene to scene, for example when we can hear Katy suffocating back stage until the new scene comes on, I thought that although it took a while, it was effective as by this time the audience was already drawn in, however, some transitions like when the grandmother would come on stage, were a bit comical as she just let herself fall on top and the lights were already on her, meaning any movement she did was visible. I thought this could be improved by coming in with the bed earlier, and so could have the narrating tone, as it was completely monotonous and it lacked purpose and emotion, so it made the story disengaging (specially when finding the hand, where I would have used more pauses to create tension between the audience, or when talking about things such as her grand mother having a fever and shivering, because those are crucial lines that needed intensity).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?

The video

v=zBhgzxL2kFk&list=WLB1250EC59495135D&index=3&feature=plpp_video