Oral Reflection

While I was not completely pleased with my performance, I am very happy with my oral presentation. I spent a lot of time dividing up the 12 minutes into 6, 2 minute sections. The sections were:
Name, story, summary
Themes in book
Introduction to scene
Themes in scene
Reflection
Conclusion
      I knew these may not have been divided equally. For example, I probably spent about 4 minutes on themes in scene, but only one minute on my reflection and one minute on my conclusion. Because of this, I was very aware of time in my oral presentation. In the first practice, my plan backfired. At some points I found myself simply listing bullet points, and being unable to think of anything else to say. Hence, the first run through was only ten minutes. However, once I realized my mistake, the actual oral presentation was much better. I made sure to elaborate on every bullet point, and not move on from one topic until at least a minute and a half was up. I also tried to make sure I was making up for lost time in some sections by adding time to others.
     I believe that I did a good job of talking about every aspect of my scene, but I will admit that I wish I talked more about literary features specifically. We really focused on themes, not so much the very small literary features. If I could, I would have worked more on that in our overall scene so I would have had more to say in my oral presentation. However, I did focus a lot on themes. I also consider Danticat’s combination of fantasy and reality as borderline literary device, so I hope that kind of counted. I definitely thought less about exact literary features in this adaptation than I did in Romeo and Juliet.

Oral Draft

I adapted Nineteen Thirty Seven from Krik? Krak!. This story really stayed with me after I read it, for two reasons. The first was the strength of the relationship between the mother and daughter. Family was a large theme throughout all of Krik? Krak!, but this story stood out among the rest. The daughter was not angry at her mother, and it did not seem to me like the ever was. The disconnect came from fear. I knew that exposing the daughter’s relationship with her mother was something I wanted to explore. The second reason was the legend of the “wings of fire.” The women escaped from the Massacre in 1937 through the river, to Haiti. The story goes that once they emerged, they were red from the blood running into the river. The soldiers in Haiti believed they had “wings of fire.” The story of these powerful voodoo priestesses inspired me. With that was the voodoo “magic” that was present throughout the entire story. The Madonna, for example. Her “tears” were produced by the mother, but it was still interpreted as magic. This was another aspect that I wanted to explore.

When it came time to envision my adaptation, I did a lot of research to find the story in voodoo literature, but there was nothing. It was difficult for me to find a new route to follow in my adaptation. At first, I wanted to do something very abstract. The  mother and daughter would tell their own stories, and try to understand each other better. The daughter would tell of her confusion as a kid, and the mom of her escape. At the end, right when they come to a conclusion, the mom would be arrested. The scene would end where the real story began. I thought I could have interesting lights, sound, costume and set pieces to complement the abstract feel of the scene. I was also going to add a third character - the Madonna. In the story, the Madonna was just a doll. I thought she could take the place of a “voodoo God,” or something along those lines. However, when it came time to actually write the script, I had to change most of my original ideas. Doing the scene very abstract was difficult, because we needed a lot of lines for each character. There also needed to be dialogue, and my original idea was focused on monologues. Finally, we did not want to depend on stage effects for the scene. To solve these issues, we decided to make the scene less abstract, but with slight ethereal aspects. The scene began with the massacre, when the mother swam through the river to escape. It ended when she was arrested. In between, we told the story of Josephine, her daughter. She began by fully believing in the stories her mother told her. However, after visiting the river and seeing the clear water she doubted if the stories were true. Then her mother was taken away for practicing voodoo, and a girl at school showed her she was not alone. This told Josephine that there was something authentic in voodoo, and she believed she was a daughter of the river once again. The Madonna was sent to the mother when she crossed the river. She was there to guide and protect her. However, we decided that only the mother could see the Madonna, and the mother never did anything without consulting the Madonna first. Once the mother was arrested (and presumed dead), Josephine could see the Madonna. She was passed down from daughter to mother to protect voodoo for multiple generations.

Edwidge Danticat did a great job of combining reality with fantasy. I hoped to use stage effects and lines directly from the story to enhance that. There was also a lot of repetitiveness, like the title itself- the call and response game “Krik? Krak!”. We used these lines very very often. The most important time we used this repetition was in the very end. Josephine recited a slightly altered version of the final part of the repetition. This put her as the main character, instead of the mother.

We used specific lines from the story in many places. I wanted to keep the integrity of the legend, and not change too many parts. We spent a lot of time perfecting the script and making an extension of the plot in the story. On stage, we really focused on the relationship between the mother and daughter with body language and vocal tone. As the mother, I tried to always face Josephine, at least with my upper body. I also used a much higher, more caring tone with her. To achieve this caring attitude, I used soft and slow voice and raised my tone slightly. I also used very soft motion, instead of harder and sharper motions. I also wanted to convey connection to the Madonna, so I often attempted to have my upper body faced toward Josephine, but my lower body pointed at the Madonna.

We tried to create a separation between Josephine and the Madonna by having me stand in between them as often as possible. For me, that meant I had to be hyper aware of my location at all times. I also had to show that I could hear the Madonna, but Josephine could not be aware of her presence. That led to a difficult balance between the two relationships that was very difficult for me to manage. I did it by keeping eye contact with Josephine when the Madonna was around, but sometimes using other body language to point towards the Madonna.

We did not manage our time well at all in this production. I am not as happy as I would like to be with the final performance. The issues onstage were due to differences in the cast as we worked on the entire scene. All three of us had very different ideas for what the final should look like, and despite trying to talk it out, we just never came to an agreement.

We also took too much on when we decided to do a lot of lighting effects. So much of it was completely unnecessary, and we did not have the time to really perfect it. We also sped through a lot of the scene, and had to do more improvising than I would have liked.

However, there were some good aspects of I did and how my group acted. It felt genuine, despite the technical mistakes. And sometimes, the tech stuff worked really well - like the river scene. Emotionally, the scene did very well. We were all good at performing in the moment. I felt very attached to the scene.

Final thoughts on Krik? Krak! Skit

    To be honest, I wish we had more time to figure more out for our final performance. I wasn't happy with it. I know part of this is our own fault, because we didn't manage our time well. It's just kind of disappointing, because we put a lot of work into it and the final production was nothing like I envisioned.

    Part of this was due to issues that have existed from the beginning. All three of us had very different ideas for what the final should look like, and despite trying to talk it out, we just never came to an agreement. Or at least we thought we all came to different agreements. Another problem, as Ms. G pointed out, is we tried to do too much with too little time and energy. We should have simplified it a lot, but we didn't, and now we have to face the consequences of those actions.

    Another issue in our final production were completely new. Yes, we didn't know the lines for the quiz, but we had learned them very well before the final - at least I know I did. But during the actual performance, I blanked and had to do a lot of improvisation. I'm sure this was just due to stress and exhaustion, but still, I am disappointed is that. We also went wayyy too fast, which I didn't realize until the end. Everything felt rushed and stressed, and on the way home, I realized how fast we had been going. There was no reason we couldn't have just taken our time.

    The last, possibly most annoying problem we faced was the lighting. And honestly, it was completely our fault. Again, the issues of communication in our own group was very clear. We also all wrote the script with different styles of cues, so when I went through and marked scene changes, I thought there was a scene change where Nadya and Abby may not have and it just got easily confused. This is because Nadya and I would work on it late at night, then Abby would change it in the morning and we would miss that part. It's not any one person’s fault, it was just problematic.

    While I don't think this was the best acting I have ever done, I am satisfied with how I did and how my group acted. It felt genuine, despite technical mistakes. And sometimes, the tech stuff worked really well - like the river scene. Emotionally, the scene did very well, and I hope the IB scorers realize that. We also managed to solve one of our biggest issues - the plot itself. I liked the story, and what it became. Do I wish I had the time or energy to do it again? Sure. I am a perfectionist and I like things to be up to my expectations. If I could go back, there is a lot I would change, but there is still some I would like to keep. I am extremely grateful to Abby and Nadya for working with me, and to Ms. Guarino, Kathleen, James and Zach for stepping in last minute. Everybody worked hard, and any issues were a result of our own time management.