Staging proposal

After reading the book My Love My Love, it gives me a special feeling, which is I don’t like the main character DDD. From my point of view, DDD is the most selfish and egocentric person in the whole book, so my personal preference is to make the play a totally tragedy. She disregards her mom’s warn, the god’s war, and even rejects Daniel’s grandma’s kindness suggestions. The whole book is a story to teach a girl how naive and normal she is. Even though DDD is surely saved by gods, it is DDD’s choice to go to the big city and be betrayed: No gods helped her in her life process. If I were the director of this play, I would make it as an ironic musical, and the god in the book only exists in DDD’s dream.

I really like the idea of changing background through the moving triangular prism. One said could be drawn with forest, which represent the poor village. Another side could be drawn with ocean and forest to show the path to the big city since the book describe DDD’s destination as a place where ocean and forest reach together. The other side could be drawn with fancy buildings, which represent the big city. Another is that two big screens is needed on both side of the stage so that the facial expression of characters can be clearly shown. For instance, when Daniel opens his eyes and look at TiMoune, audience may not able to see unless there are screens. When DDD is in the village, a tent and a grass mat would be used as her home. To show the wind and the tsunami, the light and the sound effect is really important. When the village is peaceful, the normal warm light and bird chirping sound would be needed to show that the village is in harmony. Then the really dark red light would be used when the big storm comes. Under the dark light, actors’ face can’t be seen clearly and hard to distinguish, so that the idea that all lives are equal in front of danger can be shown. The sound effect of thunder and rain should definitely be contained. When DDD gets on the way to the big city, the round white light is casted on the background and disappear every 20s to show a day has past. The third scene happens in the big city where people are all rich and cold blood. To show this feature and as a foreshadow of DDD’s death, blue light would be use since it gives people the feeling of coldness and isolation. When DDD comes into Daniel’s room, fancy furniture like bed and sofa would be used. Also, a fake balcony, a candle, and a bottle of red wine would be needed to bring out the romantic atmosphere.

The main characters are DDD and Daniel. Mama, Tonton, Daniel’s father and grandma are secondly important. Then the extra characters are the vendors in the big city and the peasants in the village. For TiMoune, her life has a really big change before and after she lives in the Hotel. She is really poor when she was in the village, as a result she doesn't have any nice clothes. So I think she should wear a ripped dress and with a hair band on her hair. Since she is black, she could keep her hair to be curl. Another really important point is that TiMoune should be bare foot since in the later of the book when she comes to the Hotel of Daniel, other peasants mock at her feet. To make her character reliable, she should have some dirt on her foot. When she lives with Daniel together, the book says that people made dresses for her, she no longer have to wear plastic shoes, and she starts to be over confident. As soon as Daniel falls in love with TiMoune, she claims the Hotel belongs to her. To portrait this kind of character, TiMoune needs really fancy dress with fabric, wearing comb that was decorated by jewelry, and ties her hair up, maybe makes her hair straight. For TiMoune’s parents, they are just normal peasants. Therefore, they should wear dark yellow or brown color clothes to represent their social status. For Daniel, he was born to be rich so he should wear shinny light blue tuxedo, just like what princes in Disney movies wear. His father should wear almost the same as Daniel but in brownish red color and have less decoration on his clothes to show his age and wealth. 

I really hope the play could be musical so that people could make their voice deeper to show there depression and when they dance and sing can show their happiness. Also the reason why I want it to be a musical is that DDD has lots of part, which she sings to Daniel. It would be too weird to suddenly sing a song while reading scripts. Therefore, singing all the time can not only explains why she sings but can also easily show emotions.

in class writing

Although MB and TiMoune are both poor peasants who live in village, MB had more life experience and lives longer. His experience tells him that TiMoune, as a peasants girl, will never be able to be together with Daniel, a rich man who study in France and owns a hotel. Marrying Daniel is unimaginable for every villager, except for TiMoune. She believes "(she) now belongs in the big city. Daniel B is there waiting---his hear is beating for her." TiMoune is more brave and believes she was born differently than others, which is what makes her believe Daniel can fall in love with her. Since everyone else in the village are normal people, who was never helped by god but still believe in the gods, TiMoune feels she should go to a fancier place where there are rich people who are as special as she does. MB keeps the same opinion with Mama Euralie, because she said: "Mama Euralie has come through many great storms in this life." We can say that Villagers' horizons are not broad enough, but TiMoune also has never been to the big city before. Except for TiMoune, villagers all have much more experience, and they clearly know if two people have a huge gap, these two people are not going to live happily together: "Keep one's heart where one can feel its beat."

In class writing

TiMoune is really poor when she was in the village, as a result she doesn't have any nice clothes. So I think she should wear a ripped dress and with a hair band on her hair. Since she is black, she could keep her hair to be curl. Another really important point is that TiMoune should be bare foot since in the later of the book when she comes to the Hotel of Daniel, other peasants mocks at her feet with no shoes. To make her character reliable, she should have some dirt on her foot.
When she is lives with Daniel together, the book says that people made dresses for her, she no longer have to wear plastic shoes, and she starts to be over confident. As soon as Daniel falls in love with TiMoune, she claims the Hotel belongs to her. To portrait this kind of character, TiMoune needs really fancy dress with fabric, wearing comb that was decorated by jewelry, and ties her hair up, maybe makes her hair straight.

Notes for chapter 6,7,8,9

note 4and 5

5 senses chart (unfinished)

Hearing

1.        As she listened to the camionettes passing on the road, to the croaking frogs, the rasping crickets, and the hooting birds in the woods, she knew that nothing in the world could compare with the sweet softness of pure brook water. P21

2.        A torrential rain fell. P23

3.        Silence, too. P26

4.        Drumbeats sounded from the hills. P26

5.        They met instead outside of huts to talk, to complain, to drink rum and shout of their grievances to each other. P27

6.        Then came a resounding crash, so shattering that she knew a giant star had fallen to smash their tiny village. P27
7.     She strained, listening to the fading sound of its engine. P14

Smell

1.         Mud huts dissolved and sank beneath the thickening currents. P41
2.     The air was wet---even the air in the cabin. P43
3.     A smell of death invaded the cabin through his festering sores. P44
4.     
5.     Needles of water drilling down into the earth softened it into mud. P42

Touch

1.        They put the young man on the pallet and carried him up the hill, where they placed him on a mat in the sheltered stone house… P41

2.        …she lay on the sandy bottom, letting water rush to thicken her hair and cool her head. The water massaged her neck, her body, her tired feet.  P21

3.        She has the smoothest skin, the peasant girl. Black. Silk at the calves, stain on her thighs, changing to velvet blackness as it spread up her shoulder, her neck, her face. P21

4.        Stomping knee-deep through mud P24

5.        She let the falling water woo her. P25
6.     ...touching the peasant girl gently on her head as he passed. P14

Sight

1.        A man in black who perched inside the window, his clothes as dark as the night behind him… P46

2.        His shirt was torn to shreds. He had lost his old hat, and his hair stood up white and thick on his head. A gray beard had grown on his chin. P52

3.        The hill is covered by the richest land, which run like a river for miles. P53

4.        They looked at the woods, where standing trees supported those that had fallen, and knew that within that tangle of the trees lay their future. They saw the water rushing off, seeking outlets to the sea, and they laughed and shouted their victory. P48

5.        He looked from her to stare around the mud hut. P40

Taste

1.        Others went out to take care of the needs--- some as simple as filling empty bellies with rainwater. P43

2.         But during these hard times when peasants were reduced to eating only millet or cornbread cereal, even vegetables of poor quality were better than none at all. P15
3.     The old woman drank some. The peasant girl drank the rest. 
4.     The seeds the peasants planted become seeds they were forced to eat. P22
5.     In minutes the peasants' possession had disappeared beneath the rising water. P41

Reflection on oral

This oral presentation is different from the traditional idea of a presentation. This is a changeable work since students are not allowed to use any other ways to project other than speaking it out. Before I really start to try a practice, I thought this 12-15 minutes must be really long and suffering because I need to keep talking. However, after I really tried once I realize this is not a really long presentation if students are confident and clear about what they are going to say.

When writing the oral presentation, I realize that not only the performing part, but also the thinking part is important as well. I thought a lot about each character that I performed before acting. I also tried to understand what makes Caroline’s mom become such a controlling parent, and I also thought about the girl’s character which she is extremely rebellious because of puberty. So I put my early thoughts into my oral presentation in order to clarify my reason to combine Children of the Sea and Caroline’s wedding together.

As Ms.Guarino said: the more practice, the better you can do. I didn’t realize that I am going do my final version of oral presentation until yesterday, and I started on my notes since this morning. Since I didn’t manage my time properly, I didn’t get much time to practice, which makes me really nervous when doing the final one. I had 5 pages of notes, and when I reach the end of my third page, I used about 8 minutes during practicing. But I only used 7 minutes when doing the final. Since I was too anxious, I spoke really fast and my voice was trembling. I made lots of grammar mistakes and had no logical when talking. If I get a chance to redo it, I will definitely do more practice and be well prepared for it.