Medea Monologue Evaluation

The monologue I was given was an extract from the play ‘Medea. I played Medea. My director (Mark) and I started with a read-through of the script, even from the first read-through we decided the main theme was that we wanted to show her need for revenge. We the realised this was from the same play that we watched last year. We used this to come up with that themes needed such as her still being in love with Jason. We used units and objectives to the scene into sections. From different sections we got different units, some parts should show a very vulnerable side then others showed anger and love.
We realised this was a script needed different levels of emotion and having the ability to change your emotion very quickly was key. We decided to focus on her unrequited love for her husband (Jason) who divorced and betrayed her. Also the anger that she held towards him because of the betrayal needs to be strong. She needed to be quite hard and strong but vulnerable at some points. Once we had cracked the themes and character personality we started do proper rehearsals. I rehearsed by myself to learn my lines and come up with some ideas on how to perform it.
Then in school we tried the different ideas and different ways to say each line changing as we go. I sub-texted each line and brought it in so again we can see what she is really trying to say with each line. This made us change how I said the beginning of the script. We hot-seated with different partners’ and the question really made me think. It made me want to show that she still loved Jason but hated him too. Our class did an exercise when we had to be stuck in a lift with as our character with other characters. This was eye opening too, just how much of a strong facade Medea put on to try and mask her feelings.

The set was just a simple chair in the middle of the stage. We wanted simplicity so people could focus on the dialogue. The costume again wasn’t complex but purple velvet toga (because she is a Greek princess); this was to show her royal roots. The rehearsal with Mr. Borrill was what turned it around because he told me what to focus on, what parts are meant too be strong and what parts are meant to show weakness. It definitely helped me develop how I wanted the audience to see Medea in the last few days before the performance. The day of the performance arrived.
I used emotional memory to get me into the mood just an hour before and I think this really helped in the believability. I think it is one of my best performances; I felt like I connected with audience and used my projection well. I had just enough tension filled moments and I used the silence well. My main fault is my staging, I should’ve moved around more and that is something we focused on in rehearsal but I think my nerves didn’t want me to move. I used props well, when I used it as a symbol of different things such as one represented Jason. I think it was a very good performance other than the staging. I was proud of myself