Analyzing Kristin Chenoweth's Performance

1. The lighting and set design performance by Kristin Chenoweth looked more professionally overall compared to Ben Hensley’s performance. In Chenoweth’s performance, she was positioned stage left, and had calm blue lighting in the background with a grand piano. Additionally, the main focus was on Kristin, the camera person had an up close view that had lighting that flattered her face. On the other hand, Hensley’s performance was distracting because he was not the main focus. There were too many stimuli, you could hear a baby during the performance, the audiences’ heads, and on stage there were way too many people while Hensley was singing. There were choir groups and also an orchestra or band on the stage. I had a difficult time focusing on Hensley, and I believe all the distractions took away from his performance.

2.
I personally liked Chenoweth’s acting skills more because I felt like she had better facial expressions, hand gestures, and transitioned smoothly from singing to acting. At the same time, I feel that Hensley’s acting was geared more towards getting people to laugh, and he did a good job of getting the audience to laugh. Hensley has a sarcastic, mocking, and nonchalant acting attitude while Chenoweth plays the part of being in love with Taylor the latte boy. Chenoweth played the part of being in love by smiling a lot, giving googly eyes, and super excited whenever singing or talking about Taylor. Some of the funny things Chenoweth says, is how she swooned over Taylor saying “how are you”, and later at the end she asks, “who knew love could be so caffeinated?”. Since Hensley’s performance was not filmed close up, it was difficult to see facial expressions. Also, I felt that his hand gestures looked odd, and forced. Not to mention, he did not do many hand
gestures.

3. I thought Chenoweth had a wider range of notes she could hit than Hensley. Hensley kind of kept a low pitched and calm tone until his rebuttal song. Although, Hensley’s rebuttal song was more upbeat, and funny. Moreover, I did not think Hensley transitioned as smoothly from singing and speaking. In fact, I felt that Hensley was more talking than singing while Chenoweth sang more. I think Chenoweth’s performance also had more emotion than Hensley’s performance.

4. Hensley’s performance had a better costume design than Chenoweth’s performance. I felt like I could better connect to the Hensley’s story with his costume design. Hensley had a Starbuck’s apron on, and a black nice shirt on, which is exactly what Starbucks’ employees wear. On the other hand, Chenoweth was a Starbucks’ customer so it would be more difficult to have a good costume design. Chenoweth wore a nice dress, a necklace, and heels so it could symbolize that she dressed up to look good for Taylor. Also, Chenoweth’s dress was modest, and she looked like a nice girl in love while Hensley’s performance portrayed her as a psycho.

5. My overall reaction was that Chenoweth’s performance was much better because it was more professional, and less distracting than Hensley’s performance. Chenoweth’s Comparing these two performances has showed me how important lighting, set design, acting, vocal ability, and costume design play into having a good performance. To me lighting and set design played a huge factor in how I thought each performance was. I found both performances to be amusing. In Hensley’s performance, I really enjoyed his rebuttal song because he was singing how crazy ‘Lindsey’ was while Lindsey was singing how great ‘Taylor’ was.