Beckett Performance

I've taken a while to update on this for the simple reason that I've needed time to calm down and think it over.

It went well, and it also went not so well. I went round to Gracie's house at 4 o'clock, with all the things we'd need such as my costume (Gracie had hers- after a wednesday rush arund every charity shop in eastbourne in search of a black dress), the powder for our faces and the recording. We decided to aim to be at school by quarter to six, as we needed to be there by six at the latest. We changed into our costumes, and then Gracie did my hair by putting water in it, pulling it into a bun (painful) and then putting powder in it to make it look grey. Then she did the same to her hair, and it came out looking more grey because my hair is too dark to turn properly grey. We put powder on our faces to make ourselves look paler, which was quite dificult to do because I either ended up not looking pale enough, or looking like a ghost- neither of which was the desired effect. But we finally managed to get it right. Gracie then attempted to put eyeliner on me but it didn't really work so we decided it would be better not to bother incase it made me blink during the performance. I was also a bit worried about the powder because it made me sneeze and I was scared that I'd sneeze or blink in an obvious way during the performance because of it.

Getting ready actually took over an hour, and then we had a run through by playing the CD and just practising not blinking. I found that if I didn't wear my glasses or contacts then I was able to unfocus my eyes which resulted in me needing to blink less. I also managed to perfect saying 'Time She Stopped' in all the right places. We picked up Gracie's footrest for the performance and ot to school by 5:40. Some other people were already there getting ready so we didn't have to do very much except put the footrest in the performance area- seeing it all set up was rather terrifying.

Then at six o'clock Mr Sibley told us how the evening was going to run, and we looked at the running order on the board... and saw that we were last! Seeing as one of the themes in 'Rockaby' is death and the end, then i did seem fitting that we would be going last.

During the first half we got to sit in the audience area and watch 'Rough for Theatre' by Sam and Ben, 'Footfalls' by Tashi (which also had a lot of recording in it), 'Endgame' by Ben and Jo and Ben and Eve and then by Dan and Tom and 'Catastrophe' by George, Abi and Lewes. They were all really good and looked professional with all the lighting. There was also a whistling sound from where the wind was hitting the roof and windows, it was all pretty atmospheric!

Then there was an interval, and in the second half I had to stay in room 105 to wait for my performance time.

I got quite nervous whilst waiting. The main thing I was scared about was blinking...



Find out more tomorrow!