Brainstorming ideas

Group Member:

l   Yimeng (Nancy) Lu

l   Yuexuan (Chantelle) Gao

l   Junliang (Johnny) Liu

Characters:

l   Jonny-the boy in Children of the Sea (18years old)

l   Nancy- Caroline (25 years old)

l   Chantelle- Caroline’s mom (50 years old)+ the girl in Children of the Sea (17years old)

Setting:

Reality: New York City,1992 (the day before Caroline’s wedding)

Dream: Haiti, 1959 (the day when the boy leave Haiti)

Three scenes:

l   Scene one: Caroline is packing her stuff to prepare for the wedding. Due to the coming wedding, she is kind of nervous. However, the mother is always saying something about the wedding that she is not satisfied with and what her expectation is for the wedding. This angers Caroline, and she argues with her mom for the first time. The mother and the daughter have an intense conflict, arguing about their cultural differences and their perspectives. Caroline is checking if there is anything that has not been packed, so she goes to her mom room since there are some of her stuffs. She opens her mom’s wardrobe and find out a stack of letters that her mom wrote to her first lover in Haiti.

l   Scene two: She opens the letters and starts to read. In Caroline’s mom dream, she recalled the days back to her seventeen year-old age. It was the day when the boy is leaving Haiti by boat.

l   Scene three: The next morning, Caroline and the mother understand each other.

Staging:

Props:

l   Scene One: takes place in living room--- sofa, wardrobe, a coffee table, and a table lamp.

l   Scene Two: takes place in bedroom--- a bed, wardrobe, a coffee table, and a table lamp.

l   Scene Three: takes place in Living room--- sofa, wardrobe, a small mirror, a coffee table, and a table lamp.

Dress:

l   Scene One: Caroline wears a long sleeve shirt and a sweat pants. Caroline’s mom wears a nightgown. 

l   Scene Two: The girl (Caroline’s mom) wears a ripped jeans and a long sleeve shirt. The boy wears jeans, and a hoody. 

l  Scene Three: Caroline wears a long white dress (wedding dress). Caroline’s mom wears a women’s formal wear.

The theme of this play is to show conflict between parents and children. Especially in the book Caroline and her mom grow up in different culture and got different level of education which makes their gap and conflict fiercer.

My vision is through Nancy, Johnny, and my acting to show that every individual’s fate is similar. Currently many parents always rest their own dream upon their children and hope their children obey all rules they set. But some time they forget that everyone is an individual person. The pressure they give to their kids may be given to their grandchildren one day. To end this vicious cycle, one of the parent or the children has to compromise. In my play, Caroline’s mom recalls her old days when her father separated her and her lover, then force her to merry another man. She realize she is now being the same kind of person as her father used to be. So Caroline’s mom who sacrifice and gives her daughter freedom. I expect this play can not only show conflict between immigrant parent and child, but also the cycle of fate.