Update on the oral presentation IA 0.2

Introduction to the book/ story. ( What was appealing to me as a reader)

• Introduction to the book/ story. ( What was appealing to me as a reader)
• Why would you think it would make a good piece of theatre?

My performance was based on the story (Night Women, from Kirk! Krak?, by Edwidge Danticat).

Kirk? Krak! Is a special book, in my opinion, it’s not only a book that contains multiple short stories this book is evidence of human flourishing; with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive. Edwidge Danticat; who managed to get through all the obstacles and create something out of herself and share it with the world. Danticat and her story ( Night women) caught my attention precisely because of how this story describes the characteristics of the people of Haiti and its environment. Haiti's has a harsh and tragic history behind it, in general, this country is known for natural disasters, poverty, racial discord, and political instability that have plagued the small country throughout its history; and this story had a potential to deliver the information to the society and me.

Literary analysis of the story, Characterisation:

Theme - A story talking about a woman and her struggle throughout the story, also the judgmental opinions and hate that she received from her community. However, the theme of the story is the judgment and misunderstanding that follows her throughout the story. A mother who is being judged and misunderstood by others of being a prostitute and being different from the rest of the community. This story points out the hate that's coming from the community and the misunderstanding of people towards others with different abilities and social norms. From reading and performing the story, I can determine the value of love and sacrifice that she made for her son, whom in future might have to do the same for his kids. In my performance, I and my group tried to get deeper into the life of the women, on how she thinks, what she thinks and who influence her on making those decisions. That’s why I added two new characters to the story, both of them will help us to open up her personality and her character to the audience.

Characters :

Mother -A young single mother who is 25 years old and who works as a prostitute. She hates her job but needs it to support her son. She makes up lies about angels to protect him and wants to believe them herself. She convinces herself that women who work during the day lack her independence.

Devil -The character whom I perform and introduce to the audience is the Devil. A character who only tries to help mother but at the same time doing a favour for himself. He is a Satana a religious character, who could be over a thousand years old. He is tall, has a dark soul/personality. He does not fear of anything besides losing his powers. A Character whom I created myself, this character, in my opinion, had to be the highlight of the story. When I was creating him I wanted him to conduct all the characteristics possible including hate, love, happiness, disaster. Throughout my performance my main priority was to claim him as the adviser that Mother needed all this time, I wanted him to express all the emotions that I as a human being have and maintain. By adjusting this character to the story I wanted to show the audience the other side of the mother's thoughts and negative influence that has been following her throughout her life. Devil is a character who has to be determined to his task no matter what, however, throughout the performance, he loses his confidence due to Angel's arguments and positions that he is holding on to. I think by creating this specific character I added more fantasy and creativity to what has already been written. Devil is a strong character with a big ego and huge potential to earn his place being next to the mother and helping her out throughout the tough times until the Angel appears and destroys all the hopes that Devil has been given by mothers mental state.

Angel -  My rivalry in this performance was against fellow character Angel who had obligated himself for the same goal as me, to change mothers opinions and move onto another job and likely lifestyle. This character is no different from mine, even do to his position as being an angel there no protagonist nor antagonists in this story; both characters have their own opinion and want to help mother by following their intuition.

Conflict - The central conflict is based on the fight between Angel and the Devil on behalf of mothers decisions. Both characters are trying to manipulate mother into making decisions that they think are the right ones. Both characters are right on behalf of their opinions. However only one she will listen to.

Connection - Angel and Devil were created by me in order to add some sort of enthusiasm and sarcasm in addition to the story. Both characters are trying to play with each other by saying funny things towards each other like “ don’t you worry I won’t leave you, I’ll stay as long as I should. However, you can let that fairy go away and stop distracting us from the main topic. “ this line shows the negative/ funny attitude from Devil towards Angel which makes the dialogue more entertaining for the audience. By adding sarcasm to the story we show the aussies the connection between the characters and their nature as individuals.

• Tone language- the tone of the setting changes thought out the performance due to the different setting and the atmosphere of the play. At the beginning of the play, the tone relays on the son and the mother who basically start with the description of their lives and their feelings.  
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  Setting - of the play is a small one-room apartment where they live. Throughout the play we change the setting by including different props like; beds, table, and all of it relies on our characters movement on the stage.
  Adaptation of the short story and our performance.
  • What did we change, added?
  • What did we want to show throughout our performance?
  Out of all stories that were given to me by the author Danticat in her book " Krik Krak " the most authentic and intense in my opinion was t "Night Women". The story that does not provide the reader with Multiple detail and observations, but a story that can make us think and make us compare different perspectives. Whether as this story was presented to us in the dramatic form, I want to include some creativity and obstructive way of thinking, and what can help me with that is including comic characters that would devour the negativity and drama in the story.
    My primary goal was to maintain the plot and the theme of the story. However, I wanted to create a perfect example of rearranging the story by including little nuances that would give the story more characters and more creativity for the audience.
   In this performance, I showed the maturity of both the characters mother and the son. Mother for making the right decision and being authentic and open to her son. Son for not being scared to come up to her and being brave for talking to his mother and trying to help her to find the solution to every obstacle that there are facing and will in future.
      My role in this specific project/performance was to produce proper content and then sell it to the audience. I created and adjusted the story to the point where I wanted to be. Throughout this project I have learned a lot of characteristics about myself, for example, I’ve learned that I have the ability to lead a group of people, provide all the materials as fast as possible, deliver information in the proper way by giving and helping my partners with their part of the performance.
      In my performance I tried to include as many emotions and facial expressions as possibly could, it was my main goal to only show the emotions through my speech and tone, I wanted the audience to see the resemblance of all the emotions on my face. Sadly, I’m not sure that the camera caught all the facial expressions due to the light and me facing in the direction that makes my face focus on mother and angel throughout our dialogue. My group worked a lot, however, due to many absences and a new member in our group it was very hard to focus and develop the product that we worked so hard on. However, I’m proud of every single member of my group and their hard work throughout the project and the rehearsals.
  
  
  Conclusion performance
  • What did we do on the stage to highlight our literary analysis?
  • My role and my performance
  • How I improved my leadership role in the group
  • How did I improve, and what was successful.
    This specific project showed me as a student how much time and effort you have to put in the assignment that level and quality, including, creativity, leadership, and communication. I’ve been working on this project from the beginning of the year step by step; at first, I read the book and learned all the stories and observed the characters. By deepening into the project, it gave me an opportunity to explore and go deep into the production industry. During our final performance, it took me and my group two takes to complete the assignment what is devastating when it comes to project like this one. Throughout the performance, my group and I had some difficulties with completing our licence. However, we managed to improvise and deliver the main points of our dialogues. It was difficult for us to fulfil our hopes and hard work that we invested in this project: due to the new crew member and multiple dialogues that we had to add and adjust to our performance. New crew member, missing rehearsals, and other obstacles played a significant role in our production. However, I still do think that we did a solid job on our performance and delivered the content that we were expecting. This assignment played a significant role in me and helped me to develop and build up a leadership role in my group.