The Serpent's Tale- A Monologue by Rebecca Sunshine
For my audiovisual class I was asked to perform a monologue. My choice fell upon the Monologue the Serpent's Tale by Leonid Andreyev. The monologue speaks the story of a young beautiful lady who is in reality a serpent where she shares her pains and beauty with an unknown stranger. While practicing for my own performance I tried to get inspired from other performers that have engaged in such a monologue. While querying on YouTube I found Rebecca Sunshine's performance. After I performed the Serpent's Tale I was curious to compare her performance with my own. The major similarity between my performance and hers was the eye contact that was forceful and cynical. We both focused our energy on portraying the seductiveness of the character through the power of the gleaming eyes. Another similarity was the slow and steady voice that was in control throughout the whole performance. What differed between the two acts was that Rebecca didn't have much motion instead she focused only on her looks and the way of her speech while I tried to emphasize each beat with an action. For example, while speaking of the torture she witnessed, Rebecca stayed in poise and control only her voice spoke her misery, while I coiled in to myself letting my face expression showing the outrage and agony. Also, when inviting in the prey in my opinion she stayed very monotonic and stiff while I tried to use my hand expressions to welcome the male audience in. Both performances were unique; each tried to shine the seductive nature of the serpent in her own perspective