Further Oral Activity Draft

         The text that was used for this adaption was Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat. The book is made up of various short stories taking place mostly in Haiti. Each story has its own characters that exist in their own stories, but do not interact with characters from other stories. The stories are connected through the themes that the author intertwines throughout the whole book. One particular story, Nineteen Thirty-Seven, was able to truly showcase the themes and changes that we wanted to highlight in our adaptation. One of these ways is the characters’ relationships with other characters and objects and how they change within the story. I say ‘objects’ because in this story the Madonna, a wax doll, plays an important role. Of the characters, Josephine was the one that intrigued me the most. In the story, she visits her mother who is in prison for practicing voodoo. Their interaction is very distant. Although it has been some weeks since they have seen each other, they act as if they were just introduced to each other. But, every time she goes to visit her, she brings the Madonna doll and her mother can make it cry. Her feelings toward the doll imitate how she feels about her mother’s traditions and background in voodoo, namely she doesn’t know what to think. Her mother was part of such a close-knit community comprising of the women with whom she crossed the river with and has created a life with in Haiti. Josephine is not sure of her role in this world that her mother was a part of. This confusion and inner turmoil was one of the main themes we wanted to highlight in our adaption. Another important theme was the role of the Madonna and the way it changes throughout the story. The doll’s importance to the mother was clear from the story, but Josephine’s relationship to it as well as her realization of its true importance was another area that I wanted to explore. I really wanted to find out what happened ‘before’ this story to give the changes that we saw.
           I wanted our adaption to show the events and interactions that led to what we see in the story. The crossing of the river, Josephine’s youth, her mother’s relationship with her at that time, were all important aspects of the plot that the author deliberately left out. The main events of our adaptation were things that did not happen in the story itself, but were the events that led up to, and caused the events in the story. We wanted to show the crossing of the river and how that affected the mother, as well as the way that Josephine’s mother introduces her to voodoo and her background. It also shows Josephine’s mindset and her reactions. Josephine has an interesting position because she has, on one side, her mother telling her about her culture, but she also has her education and other children telling her society’s opinions of her mother’s views. She is very much put in between these views and she doesn’t know what to think which we see in the actual story as well. We also wanted to introduce the Madonna as a character, rather than just an object. Her relationship and opinions were very important in shaping the plot as well. An interesting idea was to have the Madonna only be able to talk to Josephine’s mother, even though she could see and hear everything that was happening. This forces her to voice her opinions through the mother. The transition occurs when Josephine’s mother is arrested and Josephine is left alone. Similar to when her mother was alone when she had to cross the river, Josephine has Madonna for support and guidance. The Madonna has been ‘passed’ down to her from her mother.  
          There were many features in the text that helped create the script. There were many interactions in the story between characters that we were able to turn into aspects of voodoo. For example, there is a conversation between Josephine and a woman that came to her house that had a call and response structure. It sounded very much like a code between the women of Josephine’s mother’s group, kind of like a way to prove who you were. I thought it would be interesting to share the process how she learned it. There are also many lines that her mother says to her that are also incorporated into the script. These become an important part of Josephine’s mother’s character.
As an actor, I think that the biggest thing that I tried to work on was the internal conflict that Josephine has. In the original story we see this confusion, but seeing younger, more impressionable Josephine and her views on her mother’s culture was different for me. Throughout our adaptation, she is learning from her mother about different parts of her religion. She learns because she loves her mother and does it because of this trust. I showed this by acting eager to learn these new concepts. When Josephine’s mother calls her, I made sure to respond and answer her quickly to show this. She accepts the new ideas, but it is clear that she is still pondering them. I showed this by pausing and looking away as if I was trying to formulate an opinion about it. Josephine then has to go to school where many children think poorly of voodoo. Josephine has to make a decision about her opinions and then even goes so far as to voice them to her classmates. When she comes home having stuck up for voodoo, she isn’t sure how to feel. I walked onto the stage slowly, and when asked about school, I hesitated, showing that she didn’t know if her actions were right. After hearing the approval from her mother, I made sure to have a smile on my face, proud of what I did. Lastly, after going to the river, she starts to question her mother and what she has told her. In the monologue about this, I made sure to increase my volume as the emotion escalated, and look around as if there might be an answer somewhere.
    I think the biggest thing that brought our final production down was the lighting and the sound. I spent a long time working to create the cues that we wanted, but in the end, they did not work as we intended. I think that if we had more time to work with the lights and practice with them, we would have realized which of those were unnecessary. From the beginning we wanted the lighting to be a large part of the production because of the abstract aspect that we were going for. In the end, we just couldn’t experiment with this as much as we would have liked. The other big issue was our set. We had a lot of scene changes, usually one in between each scene. There were only two main settings, but shifting between them was difficult for us. Using the triangles was important for us because it create that sense of abstractness that we were striving for. For the scene where the mother is crossing the river, I think the triangles were very effective. The mother was able to run through them, as she was crossing the river. The Madonna coming in to follow her halfway through was very effective too. It showed how the Madonna came in the middle of her crossing.

**i will be adding a conclusion of some sort, but i wanted to get your feedback on what i have and get a better feel for what the ib is looking for before i wrote it, thanks!**