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.
