Character Analysis

My Character is Caroline’s mom (CM) in Caroline’s wedding. At the same time, I am also playing the role of the girl in Children of the sea.

Caroline’s mom is a really traditional Haitian woman who faithfully believe that Haitian women should marry a Haitian men. Also, women in a family should serve for her husband and her husband should be the man of the family. She gives birth to Caroline at the age of 25. 25 years later, when Caroline marries Eric, her mom is already 50 years old. Growing up in Haiti is not the only reason for her to be such a traditional Haitian woman: she is also affect by her own marriage and her parents. In her dream, it will tell audiences that what CM’s life used to be like in Haiti. Her parents forced her to marry a guy who she never had a relationship before. This act of her parents affects her view of marriage, which become a reason why she is so radical on the problem of Eric is not a Haitian. Also, she lost her first lover, her husband, and her parents. There is no other family member of her who lives in America misses Haiti as much as she does. Her lonely and traditional heritage idea makes her really want to put her own believe on Caroline. For the costume part, CM appears in the first scene wearing a nightgown and slippers. To show the difference between old CM and young CM, I plan to use different posture to distinguish them. For old CM, I need to be a little bit slouch and stoop, using a relatively low voice to speak. Since she is already old, I want to show her tiredness and dissatisfied through scuff and make sound by the friction between my slippers and stage. The emotion CM has in the first and the third scene is very different. In the first scene, CM wants to express her anger and dissatisfied to her daughter, her daughter’s fiancé, and their wedding. She knows there is nothing can be changed, but she just can’t stop grumble. After she and her daughter quarreled, she was tired and aimless. In the third scene, Caroline and CM’s conflict has resolved, so CM is happy and released.  

In contrast, the girl in Children of the Sea, who is also young CM, is only 17 years old. She is immature and full of expect to romantic love. She is at adolescence, which makes her extremely rebellious. For everything her parents tells her, CM is only going to do the opposite. The harder her parents try to separate the girl and the boy, the deeper she loves him. The boy is probably her first love, which explains why she is so brave and impulsive. When the boy gets on the boat to Miami, her and her whole country was poor. To show this feature, I decide to wear a ripped dress, tie a scarf over my head and bare foot. Even though she is poor, the girl is healthy and positive. I want to show it by standing straight, walk normally, and have dramatic action when speaking. Since I am acting the character at the same age with me, I’ll just use my normal voice.