Choose a production you have seen during your course where the quality of the acting made a strong impression on you and the audience. Discuss, in detail, the performance by two actors that most impressed you. You will also need to give details of particular scenes or sections where the acting impressed you. You will need to include reference to the ways the actor developed their character on stage through movement, gestures, facial expressions, voice, use of space and relationships created on stage.Aoife McMahon played the character of Beauty. She was made to be very elegant, and innocent. Much like the Disney version, and also the original fairy tale. We first see her portray emotion w ...view middle of the document...
By this we see that she is close to her family, but soon she realises that if she doesn't go, her father will be eaten, so she stops struggling. Secondly we see how she feels mixed up and lost, as the chorus members pick her up, and turn her round, as though very confused. Whilst they are moving her around, her body is very rigid, and still, signifying that although she has been confused and puzzled as to why it was she that was chosen to go, she did not display it. Next, the chorus members dance around her with sticks. They use very stiff-movements, and use large sticks, which trap her. This symbolises how she feels as though she is trapped, and has no way out. Lastly, she comes to accept the fact that she is being taken away, and although she doesn't relax, she keeps still.Meeting the Beast was an extremely brave thing for Beauty to do, because he had threatened to eat her father. At the start of the scene we can see that she is nervous, because she keeps her distance form the Beast. She tries to keep as far away from him as possible, but at the end of the scene she is right next to him. This shows how she has bonded with the Beast in this scene. At the start, when she is wary of him, her stance and posture is very withdrawn and timid, as she is aware that she is in the Beast's territory, not hers, and she is scared of him. However, at the end, she is not at all self-conscious, but instead very comfortable in herself, and the situation she is in. When the Beast jokes about eating her, she is extremely scared, which we see through her facial expressions, and her use of space, as the physically tries to get as far away from the Beast as possible. After the Beast tells her that he is joking, beauty is very angry with him. We can see this through her irate facial expression, and through the tone of voice the uses- as though she is telling him off. When they eat, Beauty is disgusted at the Beast's beastliness, which we see through her appalled facial expression. She tells him that he is very ill mannered in a scornful voice. At thispoint we can see that she has become more comfortable in herself, as to reprimand the Beast. The way that Beauty and the Beast eat is important to the bonding in this scene, because at the start of the scene the Beast is eating in a beastly way, and Beauty is eating in a very ladylike way, but towards the end of the scene, the Beast tries to eat in Beauty's style, then Beauty starts to eat in the Beast's style. This shows compromise through the two characters. The acting in this scene impressed me through the way that the actors showed both different worlds coming together, and showed Beauty adjusting to her new life.The next scene that I thought Beauty's acting was particularly effective in was the scene at her house when she is deciding whether to go back or not, because she felt guilty about leaving her family when they needed her. Her acting is particularly effective in this scene, because the audience can see...
