Reflection

Julia, Nadya and I did well in our final performance. I also believe that in the short(ish) amount of time we had, we worked hard and accomplished what we wanted to. The concept of our scene came across to the audience, but could have been further developed with more character work, scene work, and addressing unanswered questions.
At first, we wanted the mothers to be sisters. That would have been a really interesting connection to make between the two stories, and tie perfectly into the lost/missed connections we read about in Krik? Krak!. Unfortunately, we did not develop that plot line enough. We could have added more reflection on their childhood, and how different that was than their own children. There was also some miscommunication in that some of us thought we were sisters and others thought we were just friends. It did not show in the performance, but it did inhibit us from really developing our characters.  I personally still thought we were sisters.
My own character could have used more development, because I was not sure her thoughts on her child becoming more American. This is partially because the book never really expresses the mother's side of the story. It does seem like she does so much to support her daughter in America, and she is never seen outright getting upset with her for not conforming to Haitian culture. However, she is still doing work (that she probably doesn't need to do) while her daughter is rising up in the world. I decided to lean towards the side of support, but I know that my character did not have clear, strong feelings on either side of the debate.
In fact, I think the beliefs of both other women could have been further explored. Julia's character, the Night Woman, could have had a much stronger interruption and could have been clearly affected by the other women's ungratefulness. I don't think that is Julia's fault, because we should have written it better into the script. Nadya's character, the mother from Caroline's Wedding, was clearly against the "Americanization" of her children, but that could have escalated into an argument between the two mothers, instead of one (me) pushing aside disagreement to help her friend.
If we had a bigger performance space and the tools to really work on this scene, I would definitely have the Night Woman further away from the action, until the very end, when she interrupts. I also would have thought about my blocking a little more. I could have used body language to better show how I felt about my daughter becoming Americanized. I also could have reacted more, especially when the Night Woman interjected at the end. It just felt kind of awkward, which I am sure the audience could see. She also didn't interrupt right in the middl of a line, which made the inturrpution look like less of an interruption and more like a cue.
None of this means I didn't like my script, or that we did poorly. I really liked our idea of having Julia off to the side until she interrupted. I also liked our choice to include a connection to Lili, playing along with the theme that would have been present if they were sisters. Finally, I loved portraying the  connection between mother and daughter in Haiti vs. America, and how that changes, and why.