Jonathan+Hayne+Individual+Accomplishments

Individual Accomplishments
Throughout the course of this assignment I gained an incredible amount of respect for directors and the work they must do to achieve a compelling production; many seemingly minor changes in the play created multitudes of problems to be resolved. For example, choosing to color the filters a certain way requires a shift in wardrobe. In addition to this newfound respect, I thoroughly enjoyed analyzing the play and consequentially gained a passion for analyzing plays.

Our open forum discussion setting for completing the joint responsibilities was a major pro primarily because it sparked intense and intriguing analysis. Occasionally myself or Luke would pose a question we could not think of an answer to and the other would figure it out. For example, I noticed the first lyrical back and forth between Deeley and Anna came primarily from different songs, while the second came from the same song. This puzzled me so I posed the question of why Pinter would do this to Luke, who was previously unaware of this fact, and he responded with the idea that Deeley and Anna had finally found some common ground in talking about drying Kate, and as a result began to acknowledge each other in their hunt for Kate’s attention. The group setting also helped us in several other ways. When one of us would snatch the computer and begin composing ideas, and the other’s presence helped them to organize their thoughts. Both of us typing on one computer also fused our style of writing so that the whole of the joint responsibilities read the same, as opposed to all one section with my style of writing and all one section with Luke’s writing style. It kept us focused; one person would be lacking in concentration and the other would keep them in line. However, there were some downsides to this group discussion, primarily sometimes the one lacking in concentration would cause the other, more focused person, to lose their concentration. It also made finding the time to complete the joint responsibilities a difficult task because we were subjected to times when both of us were available.

Although Luke and I created really powerful ideas as a pair efficiently, it was nice to work on certain parts of the production myself as a change of pace. It provided me a basis of comparison so I could see what aspects of the quality of my work and my capacity to do work were affected by working in a group. I found individually I am less focused while working individually. I learned that I pay more attention to detail while in an individual setting, which is both a pro and a con, as the ideas written down are more thorough, but there is not as many of them. I noticed this while drawing the poster; I had spent much more time researching how to properly draw a human body for my individual portion while alone than I did learning how to properly draw the poster while with Luke. This also reminded me of the fact that no matter how much time I put into drawing something properly, I am at best a mediocre artist. This was rather unfortunate for our group as neither myself nor Luke is a good artist. One major con in my individual work was that I believe I did not expound on Deeley enough in the costume design section. His personality is less obvious than both Anna and Kate, and I feel as if delving even deeper into Deeley could have allowed me to form a more comprehensive defense of my selection of clothes for Deeley.

The fact that our group comprised only two people as opposed to three was a major con in our completion of the project. It bumped up the amount of work on each person’s part by 150%, which made it difficult to stay focused due to the intimidatingly large amount of work ahead of us. It also prevented us from gaining the diversity of ideas that most three people groups achieved. Although being a man down mostly hurt us, it allowed our group discussions to be more efficient. We were able to listen to each other and provide feedback, which sometimes is not as easy with three people. When three people are spewing ideas at the same time in one room, it can become confusing and certain powerful or intriguing ideas may become lost from group members talking over each other.

Luke and I are in the same fraternity, so we know each other extremely well and see each other nearly every day, which was incredibly helpful in completing the assignment. Had I worked with someone less familiar, I would have been more reserved and not said all the ideas running through my head. It also would have been difficult to spend the whole project with someone whose presence I enjoy less than Luke’s.

Overall, this project was extremely informative and forced me to learn more than I ever envisioned at the start about not only theatre, but also how I work in different settings. Despite its enormous length and the many hours it chewed up, I thoroughly enjoyed this project.