Evaluating Live Theatre

You cannot evaluate an evening

You saw a production months ago. In the exam you have to write about it, and the person marking your answer was not there. That fact decides everything. They cannot check whether the production was good. They can only check whether what you say about it holds together. ⭐ Which is why you cannot really evaluate a production at all. You can only evaluate a MOMENT, judged against what that moment was trying to do. A sentence about a whole evening has nothing in it that can be tested. A sentence about thirty seconds of stage time has everything: what happened, what it appeared to be for, and what it did to the people watching. ⚠️ So the smallest unit of a good answer is not an opinion. It is a moment.

Two sizes of judgement

Both of these sound like evaluation. Only one of them can be rewarded, and the difference is simply how much of the evening the sentence is trying to cover. Read your own practice answers looking only for which column they belong in.

Order the four beats of an evaluation

A paragraph that earns marks does these four things, in this order. Arrange them.

• Describe one specific moment precisely enough that it can be pictured
• Say what that moment appeared to be trying to do
• Say what it actually did to you and to the audience around you
• Judge how well it did it, and give the reason for your judgement

The funeral played bright

In an invented production, a funeral scene is staged in bright white light with cheerful music. You disliked it. What is the best first question to ask yourself before writing about it?

• What was that choice trying to do to the audience
• Did I like it or not
• Was that the right way to stage a funeral
• Does the script say the lighting should be bright

Words that do the work in Section B

Five words that turn an opinion into something an examiner can reward. You already have the vocabulary for set, costume, lighting, sound and performance skills from earlier in the course.

Find the sentence that is evidence

Here is part of a student answer about an invented production. Select the ONE sentence that gives an examiner something to work with.

• The production I saw was very moving and the acting was of a high standard.
• I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anybody.
• In the argument near the end, the daughter kept folding and unfolding the same tea towel while she shouted.
• The set was very clever and worked well with the story.
• Overall the director did a good job of bringing the play to life.

Which sentences are evaluating

Three of these five are evaluating rather than describing or simply preferring. Choose the three.

• Keeping the whole cast on stage throughout meant nobody could escape the argument, which made the room feel uncomfortably crowded
• Playing the confession facing away from us hid the face at exactly the moment we most wanted it, which made the silence afterwards feel longer than it was
• The single hanging bulb gave a bare, interrogation-like feel, which suited a scene about being questioned but made the later reconciliation look cold
• The mother wore a blue coat in the first scene and a grey one in the second
• I thought the music at the end was the best part of the whole show

Three beats, then stop

In the exam, write in threes and resist the urge to summarise. ⭐ Name the moment. Name what it was trying to do. Say whether it did it, and why. Three beats is a complete paragraph. A fourth sentence saying the production was very effective adds nothing, because it is back to judging the evening again. ⚠️ And you are allowed to say a choice did not work. A well reasoned criticism scores exactly as well as a well reasoned compliment, and it is often easier to justify.

Match the choice to what it seemed to be for

How a good review works

Leave the theatre for a moment and read two reviews of the same restaurant. The first says the meal was lovely, the service was friendly and it was good value. Every word of that could be true. It is also completely useless, because it would fit half the places in the country and there is nothing in it you could argue with. ⭐ The second says this. The bread arrived warm, before anybody had asked for it, and the table went quiet for a second. The main course came on a cold plate, so the sauce had set at the edges by the third mouthful. Notice what the second reviewer never says. Never says the food was good. Never says the kitchen was careless. ⚠️ And yet you know exactly what they think, and you could disagree with them specifically, which is the real test. ⭐⭐ The trick is that each small thing is tied to what the kitchen was clearly going for. Warm bread unasked for is a place trying to look after you, and it worked. A cold plate is a kitchen that has stopped paying attention at the last step, and the dish paid for it. A theatre answer is built the same way, out of small things tied to what somebody was clearly going for.

Complete the live theatre evaluation facts

An answer that earns marks is built out of one _____ at a time, described closely enough to be pictured. Each one is judged against its _____, meaning what the choice appeared to be trying to achieve, and the precise detail of what happened on stage is the _____ that makes the judgement checkable. You then say what it did to the _____ around you, which is its _____, and attach a reason, because the _____ is the part that is actually marked.

Build one evaluative sentence

Complete a sentence about an invented production in which a long scene is played almost entirely in the dark.

Evaluation quick-fire

Five quick decisions. Three lives.

Plan the answer you can actually write

It is the exam. You saw the production seven months ago and your memory of it is patchy. Work through the decisions.

• You need material. Which do you reach for first?
• One of your moments is vivid but you cannot remember what the lighting was doing. What now?
• You have written your moment, its purpose and its effect. Time is left. What is the best use of it?

Evaluate one moment you remember

Think of any live production you have seen, at school or elsewhere. Choose ONE moment from it and evaluate that moment. Do not summarise the production.

• Describe the moment closely enough that somebody who was not there could picture it
• Name one specific choice within it, made by a performer, a designer or the director
• Say what that choice appeared to be trying to do
• Say what it actually did to you and to the people around you
• Judge how well it succeeded and give the reason, which may be a criticism