A drawback in our Thursday matinee performance was the level of vocal volume in the more challenging songs. An example of this would be, in the Prologue the verse 'practical cats...rabbinical cats', everyone was concentrating to much on making their solo dance routines to complicated so the level of volume dropped as we all ran out breath. We have been advised to not worry to much about the solo dances, to just to do simple, effect movement, this was the singing will not be completely overshadowed. During the Naming of Cats, it was predominant that not everyone knew the words or timing pattern, if the the knowledge of lyrics were worked on then this would be a much stronger song. Even though the song is supposed to be whispered, doesn't mean that the volume levels should be so low and this fact was blatant due to the backing track being turned down so low.
Another point of development would be the balance of people on stage. An example of this would be that during Sophie's speech, which occurs just after Josh and Cherkanah have sung a small due-ted verse, I was the only person stage left, and there were 5 people stage right. I have now spoken to a few people who will move across if need be.
The Old Gumbie Cat and Rum Tum Tugger ran very well, as they are two of our strongest numbers. It is now just the matter of tightening up the movement, making sure we all know how we are extending our hands and feet as to look like a strong unit, in sink with one another.
I would still say that there is from improvement in the Jellicle ball, as it is the liveliest, most exciting number. Facial expressions still need to worked upon, I find myself concentrating so hard on the movement, that I end up with a completely neutral face and I will try to work on the movement so that I am more confident and are able to look up, out and smile because I do enjoy myself during this song.
What really impressed me in our Thursday matinee was our group's ability to improvise and carry on. As me and Niamh were about to start singing 'Moments of Happiness', the music cut out, but with stopping we continued smoothly into the song, which lead into Ellie singing her solo acapella also because the fault could not be corrected but as a group we all watched each other and I knew I could rely on any one of them to cover something if anything went wrong.
I felt that performance in Macavity was well rehearsed and ran smoothly. I made it a point to look out at the audience at all times, to keep them connected with the song. I feel I remembered the movement well and performed to song to a high standard. A point of development for both myself and Ellie during this song, would be to have more eye contact because this effects the connection that we are trying to portray to the audience,
During Growltiger, we were missing two swords, because someone had misplaced them and not set them in the correct place for the song, so we had two 'swords' between two pairs in which only one of the pair would have a sword. As a member as props team and made it my goal to find and set the swords myself for each future performance.
Finally, The Ad-dressing of Cats has improved, but there are still a few minor issues that remain. For instance, lyrics need to be properly learnt, it is very clear that the pauses that occur are not supposed to be there because everyone is watching each other frantically waiting for a bit they know. It's a viscous circle that because they are singing quietly, the music is quieter but because the music is quieter , they can't hear when the are supposed to be singing.
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