Writing a good evaluation or review
A review looks at the production as a whole and considers how the following areas have an impact upon the audience.
Make sure that you refer to production personnel in your review. Give names of actors, director, designers etc when you refer to their work. If you don鈥檛, it will seem vague and lazy to the reader. Consider the themes of the play and detail how they were brought out by design, direction or acting choices. Look at how theatre critic, Susannah Clapp achieves this in her review of the Royal Shakespeare Company鈥檚 production of Wolf Hall by referencing the importance of religion as a theme in the play:
Christopher Oram's glorious design projects luxuriance and a protest against lavishness. Here is Catholic high colour and Protestant plainness: an austere set and rich costumes. The huge cross that is from time to time illuminated at the back of the stage is made of bricks, as if it were not only a Christian symbol but a structural necessity.
Use adjectives to describe what you heard and saw. Remember to pick out one or two key moments in the drama to focus on what the actors did successfully by noting the acting skills they used. For example:
Ben Miles's performance as Cromwell is crucial and it is magnificent. He is not, as he is in the novels, seen as a bashed-up child, the son of a Putney blacksmith. Yet he suggests elements of the background at which the courtiers sneer. At his first entrance, he is chewing as he speaks; as his authority consolidates, his accent subtly poshes itself up.
Notice that Susannah Clapp distinguishes between the play and the production by naming Ben Miles the actor when referencing his performance and not just his character, Cromwell. It鈥檚 also important to note not only the effect the production has on you but also how it affects the audience. Are they moved? Are they bored? Are they laughing?