Monologue 1 Reflection ("It's That Time Again")

When choosing which of the monologues offered to perform, I chose the monologue "It's That Time Again" because I felt confident playing a character who can be cute, snarky and threatening. I decided to play the character, named Allie in the script, as a girl around age ten due to the reference to Disney World in the script, and because of that I used a high-pitched, somewhat squeaky voice that dips more towards my regular voice when Allie enters her creepy mode. I quickly decided at what points it was important to have my mood shift from bubbly and innocent to frustrated and cruel. The more I practiced the monologue, the smoother these transitions became, pinpointing more moments that could serve as smaller transition moments. 

This monologue specifically is meant to be spoken to another unseen character, Mrs. Seibert. As I was developing the monologue, the main feedback I received from others was to leave more pauses for places where Mrs. Seibert would likely interrupt, as well as leaving room for the audience to breathe and fully absorb what just happened. So, I took notes on where it would make sense to have long and short pauses, and imagined what might fill those pauses if this were a two-person performance where someone else was playing Mrs. Seibert. From there, I practiced my reactions to these unspoken lines, so that I would not just be standing there with a blank face during the pauses when performing the monologue. I also got suggestions to add more of a physical aspect to my monologue, which I did my best to incorporate through small things like rapidly tapping my foot when impatiently waiting for Mrs. Seibert to answer the door.

From doing this monologue, I have learned to consider the context of the scene I am performing, such as with the unseen presence of Mrs. Seibert. I have also learned to try to keep the audience invested for every second of the performance, through facial reactions and physical movements, even when I am not saying a line. In addition, from seeing the progress of my peers, I was reminded of the importance of memorizing your monologue as early on in the progress as possible, as it is difficult to develop the emotions of the scene when you are struggling to remember your lines. Seeing my peers' monologues also showed me how having high contrast between beats in a scene makes it much more complex and interesting. For example, Helen initially performed her monologue in a sad tone for the whole thing, but in her final performance, she shifted into being angry in the middle, which showed just how frustrated her character was. 

Next time we do something like this, I hope to be able to use the space around me more, as the nature of the monologue I chose this time somewhat dictated that I had to be standing in an imaginary doorway for most of the time.