Unit 12: The Lovely Bones Show Evaluation

This show marks the end of my journey of my second year at Stockton Riverside College, and I believe that it really has shown how much I have grown as an actor over my two years at this college, with Mr Harvey being my most challenging role I've taken on.  Every role I have performed at this college has given me a unique opportunity, stretching me in all sorts of different ways, and ending on such a interesting character truly encapsulates my journey.  During the rehearsal process, I spent it trying to get into the headspace of Mr Harvey, as obviously he is a character I share no similarities with, so the research I did for this character really helped me bring him to life.  

For this performance, I had a few goals I wanted to achieve by the end of it, the main one being to successfully portray the pure remorseless and sadistic nature of Mr Harvey, really creeping out the audience with how I acted him out.  For this I really put thought into every action I did on stage, even when the spotlight wasn't on me, so I wouldn't break character, as this just made the performance more believable and immersive.  I feel I accomplished this goal as when I asked some of my peers for feedback I was told, "I thought it was terrifying, you portrayed the character really well. The 'innocence' when you would talk to Susie's family to the devilish behaviour towards the girls was just crazy to me."  As for portraying his emotions, I believe my strongest was when he begins to lose his mind, as before that he was mainly quite emotionally flat until then.  When he was losing his mind, I didn't want to make the audience feel sorry for him, so instead of acting completely frightened of the spirits, I was screaming at them in anger, as it still effectively shows his fear, yet also still portrays his sadistic and cruel nature.  This was further helped by how I paired my vocal performance with my actions, where I chose to have Harvey cover his ears and slam the back of his head off the bench he was sleeping on to try and rid himself of the sound of bells.  In the opening scene when I bump into Susie, I used a more upbeat and kindly voice, as to make myself seem safer, even while keeping this while I was in the bunker with her, until I flipped completely into a sinister tone with the words, "I don't know why you think your leaving".  Furthermore, anytime I talked about Susie's death with another actor, I used the same fake tone I used for Susie, showing his ability to feign concern.  A time I properly showed how emotionless he was is before I left the house, I rehearsed what I would say to Abigail when talking to her about Susie's death, which is his first mistake, as people only think she's missing.  

For my costume, I went looking into charity shops for old 80's clothes that were effect both at concealing me as a normal civilian, but also still quite unsettling when performing my creepy actions.  I also got some brown loafers as shoes which I wore without socks, as I felt it added to how unsettling he was as the show took place during winter time, so wearing no socks would be very unnatural.  I wore a brown jacket too that I took on and off when I entered and exited my house, resting it on the back of my leather chair when I didn't need it.  The glasses I wore were taken exactly from the movie, with golden thin frames, which I used as a prop, also taking them on and off when I was reading.


Overall, I believe my performance of Mr Harvey has been one of my best yet, completely showing my versatility as an actor, reinforced by this review of my performance a friend gave me;  

"The most standout aspect of your portrayal of Mr Harvey was just how truly scary it was honestly, the slow, calculated mannerisms paired with the tone of voice and accent came together to make a surprisingly uncomfortable to watch character, which worked perfectly to convey the nature of Mr Harvey, with both his awkward charisma when talking to the salmon family and police as well as this much more uncomfortable, frightening side of him seen when he initially murders Susie and chases her sister from his home. However, more emphasis could have been placed on certain, notable lines of dialogue by slowing down a little bit more in order to fully capture the intensity of the piece, another critism would be that we constantly feel Mr Harvey is in complete control over what is going on, you never show any significant cracks in his plan and the way he views his chances of being caught, and although this does make the character more fighting it dulls the impact of his death, and makes his storyline feel slightly unresolved on relation to some other points."


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