26th & 27th

   The day before and the show day were pretty much running and fine tuning scenes. On Thursday we had our technical rehearsals were we went over each scene and the light cues. We didn't have a run through that day. Still, me and Michael were able to show our scene to Siou and get some feedback on it before the show day. Since we finally were able to do it in the space, we decided not to use the canes for the prison, but have Michael stand below the stairs, since it had a sinister look and gave me the possibility to play above the stairs. These were notes we received from Siou:

• Slow down sir Topas
• be more like sir Topas, Less like Feste
• Fastness and running around makes my diction bad, find moments of stillness
• Talking too fast makes the audience miss the joke

   The next day I tried to make sure I found moments for sir Topas to just stand still and show more of the character to the audience. This did lose some of the hectic pace of the scene, but also gave me time to breathe and focus on what I was saying, rather than where I needed to be next. I also made sir Topas a little bit more calm in his talking to create a bigger contrast between him and Feste. This ended up working a lot better and I felt during the performance that I was able to relax during the scene, even if I still had to do some running around and keep the energy up. 

   Another scene we worked a lot during the Thursday was the last scene. A lot of it was to do with positioning on the new stage and bringing more of the lines to the audience. This is something I've been trying to work on especially, since Feste is a character that can break the 4th wall and even interact with the audience, more so than any of the other characters can. Siou also edited the part where Feste starts to read Malvolio's letter  as  a madman. So far, I have gone way over the top with this absolutely ridiculous voice, but Siou pointed it out to me, that I should bring it down a little bit, to give the audience the change to take on the joke and actually laugh at it. Even though what I was doing was funny, it could have been overwhelming in Shakespeare's language to the audience. I really got this on Friday after running the scene a couple of times. For me, being comedic and funny on purpose is a challenge and so I have tried to go a bit over on purpose, just so that I wouldn't be under performing. Sious notes have really taught me that it is important to look at the jokes and the funniness from the audience's point of view and give them time to understand it, but also bring balance to funniness and clearness(diction).