Oral Refelction

 In my oral presentation, I introduced and overviewed my adaptation of Children of the Sea. In the first part of my presentation, I introduced on how I changed some parts of the story, for example, from Haiti to North Korea, from couple to married husband and wife. Moreover, how I changed the plot that both female and male characters left home on their journey to escape. I also mentioned in the first part about what and why I chose to keep from the original story: The method of writing letters to each other. It is an element that made the original story special and how it is structured, so I kept this part. Also, the reason why I chose North Korea, is because of its situation similar to Haiti, strict and harsh. However, I started explaining the characters I created in the second part. I try to make a clear separation to make it easy to comprehend and make the information I am giving organized. I mentioned how me as the wife and my partner as the husband has in difference, I also related this to gender role. This is what I think I did well on, I try to relate small details in my story to a bigger theme that is in common from both the original story and my adaptation. Moving on to the third part of my oral presentation, I started discussing the blockings. I told how me and my partner chose to use lighting to create a separation on the stage to show two characters being in different location while acting. How we used our props, the flags and playing national anthems. I also mentioned another important part of our blocking by having my partner standing up right and me curving my back to create a high and low level to show our different characteristics: strong and weak. For the fourth part of my presentation, I started analyzing the performance. I tried to explain all of our analysis in chronological order while we stage it, by explaining the first scene first then slowly moving on to the next few scenes.
      Overall, some parts I think I did well were speaking in a steady speed, finishing in time, and told everything that I thought is important to analyze from our adaptation. What I think I could have done better, was to be more fluent while speaking. Also, I think that I could have done a better job to make my speech more logical for the listener to understand my point deeper.

Oral

       Children of the Sea is a love story between a young couple telling their feelings for each other through letters, but never being sent out. It was one of the most touching stories from the novel Krik Krak by Danticat. Therefore, this is the story I chose to make an adaptation on. To stick more to the origina story, I kept the important and obvious element of the story: the method of writing letters to each other to express love and tell their situations. We used many of the text into our letters but also changing, adding a little bit to make it logical to our settings. Oppositely, what I changed to make it more interesting and into a new version, is the location, I changed Haiti into North Korea to create a similar situation as being isolated, having a strict government, inequality between genders, and difficult to escape. The couple in my adaptation is also married, having a daughter who has already escaped to South Korea, creating a stronger motivation for the married couple to leave North Korea as well. The husband and wife will be escaping through different routes to increase the risks of getting caught, this will create a separation between the lover and then the writing of letters will start to explain what they've been through and what they are feeling in the moment. The father is set to be a very protective, strong and brave man; On the other hand, the wife is set to be a weak, fearful and nervous woman but filled with love for her daughter as well as her husband. James is acting as the husband, and I am acting as the wife. 

       For our blockings, we created a separation through the lighting to shine only on the side while one person is writing his or her letter then darkens when another is starting their part. It is basically lights being altered with the two characters taking turn of their performances on stage. We played the national anthem of North Korea, put up posters of KimJongun and a North Korea flag to show the audience our location for the beginning of the story. In the last scene where the wife successfully arrived at South Korea, we put up a South Korea flag as well as the national anthem of South Korea to again update the audience the situation and location of the characters. Focusing more on the performance, James continued to change his position to show him not being afraid, In my performance, I stayed in the same position sitting down on the bench with curved back to show my fear on the journey alone. This created a visualized, high and low blocking of the two characteristics, strong and weak. 

        Some analysis and details the audience might not recognized in our performance including our emotions being showed through body movements. In the very first scene, when we mentioned our daughter being sent away by the father, I was angry and could not understand wholey to this choice the father has made; To show this anger, I raised my voice up while saying the line"But we will never know if she has the better life or not!" to show how worry and depressed a mother is not seeing her daughter for a long time and not being able to contact her daughter. Also while two of us sat down after the first line, I poured the tea for both of us and hand it to my husband first, this small detail being acted naturally shows a small part of gender role, man first and woman serves as housewives are used to getting things ready like meals, drinks and houseworks. Even though just a small action could be fit in to the scene it is a part we put some attention on while writing the script. The mother is also not as edcuted and well-informed as the father, she asked "what do you think is the safer way" and speaks overall less through their conversation to show her dependent on her husband. Later on in our individual small seperated stage writing our letters, I tried to use facial emotions and an unsure voice to speak many of the lines to show my fear being along on a journey. But to make sure that it isn't boring, I continued to rise up my head and make eye contacts during the process of writing. 

        Some parts I think I did well for the performance was to try to make as much actions within our plot being set with moslty writing letters. My partner also did a great job by changing his position in a small area while writing letters to keep it interesting. A difficult part for me as always was to memorize the script, I missed some parts of the script but continued acting while is a good thing in this flaw I made in my performance of being accurate, sticking to the script. 

        

Feedback for children of the sea adaptation

Our performance is an adaptation of the story Children of the Sea from Krik Krak. We chose a location of North Korea to show make it similar to a society and government like Haiti, oppressing, strict and isolated. In the story Children of the Sea, both characters wanted to leave Haiti, the male character left Haiti on a boat and the female character back at home. In our adaptation, we made both characters tried to escape. The father, sharing a lot of the characteristics with the male character in the original story of Children of the Sea, for example his braveness and desire of freedom.   For the mother, we chose to set her with a more weak and fearful character to show the difference in the typical gender role from both North Korea and Haiti. The biggest part we illuminated and take from the original story, is the way how the lover's communicate and express through writing letters to each other while bring forced to separate. 

      Because of our simple and quite acting, my partner James continued to change his position while reading his letters to show how he's more energetic, brave and strong. Me as a female living in North Korea for her whole life, showed more of a conservative characteristic and was sitting more still to show myself being afraid to move. Also lots of questioning are written in my script to show my concerns to my husband and my daughter. Even though our performance did not stopped and went smooth, but I think there are still parts that are missing that could make this performance better. First of all, I could have been more emotional to make these motion less scene more interesting to watch. For example, speaking louder when I'm actually shocked and angry about the soldiers, putting my face into my hands to show some mental breakdowns. Second of all, and the part the I wish I could have done better the most, is on the last scene. It should be so much more powerful since it is a monologue and the ending should be impressive and memorable for the audience. I missed the most romantic line and a theme from the original story---"and a sea that is Endless, like my love for you". I should speak louder when it reaches the end and also keep my eyes really focused to the camera. I could have suspended the emotions and let it be the most emotional to explode in e few last lines. 

School of Rock Review

  What some people, including myself, often thinks that rock music are only played by people with angry and cynical emotions; However, I did not like this style of music most of the time because of too much screaming and noisy sound it made. Eventually, this show---School of Rock made me see another side of rock music. It is also music, and it can be encouraging, powerful and fun. It is a kind of music that makes people step out of their box. The melody of this line "Stick to the man" was inside my head for the whole night after the show.
     One part I like the most besides the exciting music, is how I felt related to the plot. The last drama theme our school performed, was a little bit hard to fall in and feel the same. As a student, stories that are set in the school is definitely more attracting in the first place. As a junior, getting straight As is what many view as the most important and as a sign of success. My parents were never harsh on me, especially on grades. They never expected me to study for the whole time and thought that there are things that are more important than the points that are showed on the grade book. But stepping into my Junior year, I realized that even they doesn't push on my grades, I have started to understand the importance of grades and it effecting my future, including my college then a job after college. I felt pressure of satisfying and giving back to my parents, how they afford the fees and send me far away to have a better future. I felt responsibility and sometimes as a teenager trying to social, I am pretending to be someone I'm not, just like the principle, who has hidden her true feelings and hobby trying to fit to a high position.
     A very precious and is an evidence of a scene being convulse, is for the audience to have goose bumps. School of Rock did it, I felt goose bumps when the parents started to clap for their children's final performance, it was touching. The only thing that I did not like so much about this script is its distribution for every actors. Lexi did such a great job, but I think it is a pity how many actors did not have a chance to speak over two lines. I realize how the plot is set to only have a few main characters but it was just a little sad to see some of them not having a line through the whole performance.
     Overall, I found myself liking dramas with singing better. Most of the dramas I've seen in our school and outside school, those with singing are what I enjoyed the most comparing to those pure talking dramas. I especially like those Broadway shows. The School of Rock is a classic drama with good songs and it is now my favorite show of the school year.
       

Children of the Sea: Feedback + Progress

    Our adaptation on Children of the Sea went well mostly, we finished the script and decided our settings. The only problem that is bothering us is our movements to make our performance more emotional and active, which is reflected from my peers' feedback. Because our performance made it close like having our own monologues while we're seperated on our journey escaping to South Korea, and also how we're expressing of feelings through letters writting; It is important how we should add more body motions to show some interaction, connection and interesting part to continue attracting the audience. However, in my opinion one of the problem that made our performance confusing today was because of the props not being prepared yet. We will be using lighting showing how we're in different areas, flags showing which country we're at, and paper, pen to show that we're writing down letters to each other. Also, James will be acting dead in his last monologue then when the spotlight comes on me, there will be a South Korea flag in the back showing that I have arrived there without meeting my husband.
       For body movement and tone, I think we should definitely improve our tone and voice to express our feelings more while reading the lines. We would have to discuss and highlight which part would we like to emphasize, show sadness, show anger or show ourselves being tired because of the journey. Also, more interactions should be added in the first scene since it is the only scene where the lover is being together in front of the audience, and to make the latter on situation logical, it is important to show this married couple in love more obvious. Even though we're simply reading our our letters, I am think that we could add some actions in between us writing down letters to show that we're actually escaping in a harsh situation. For example running into the stage and breathe rapidly to show that I was just running away from the soldiers or from danger.
          Since many of our classmates said that our plot is unclear, so I am thinking that we could add in a narrator's voice to tell some presupposition to show where we are and in case some people doesn't recognize North Korea's flag or Kim-Jung Un's picture poster we will be sticking on the wall while performing. We could also add lines in the first scene like :"I will see you in South Korea, be safe." or "Be safe in the sea, I will definitely escape succesfully as well in the woods to meet you and our daughter in South Korea", to show the audience what is our plan and what will be happening in the upcoming scenes.
           Overall, me and my partner will be fixing our script to make it clear and preparing our props for the next performance. Also, discussing where and what emotions should we show together to the audience according to the text. We could build up the emotion as the story slowly steps to the end, and even a nervous feeling using red lights and talking with speed while reading one of the letters.

Script progress

Setting : A family living in North Korea. Their Daughter is a very good student who is protected by South Korean government and studying there. 

Mother and Father talk about they want to escape from N.K to S.K, where they can live with their daughter

Father and Mother left each other

They record how they escape in form of letters, store by themselves

One of them die, the other waits in the place their promise to meet.

Scene 1: In the living room. There will be two chairs, a table, and two triangles for background with poster of Kim Jong-un

(Light on)

F & M: Long live for Great comrade Kim Jong-un

F: There is nothing changes in my life here. As a normal worker in North Korea, my life is colorless.

M: Well, there was something great in our life, our daughter! But you let the South Korean people took her.

F: I did that for her own good. She is a smart girl, she deserves a better study

M: I know, but there are mountains and mountains between we and her. I miss her so much

F: I used to read a lot about South Korea, that’s why I let our daughter study there. 

F: I am sick of the this life! Have you ever think about living in another place. I miss our daughter too, but this country won’t do any good for her.

M: Oh, I miss our lively daughter so much.

(Drinking tea, pause)

F: I miss her too. We can not live a life like this. And since our daughter escaped, the government already expect us. Let’s escape to South Korea too!

M: Yes, I want to live with my daughter! But how can we escape, You already spend all our money for our daughter.and you know how dangerous it is. 

F: Let me think. I will escape from the sea, and you will escape on land. This will be safer for both of us.

M: I hope we can both get into South Korea safely. Let’s meet in the XXX building.

F: I will see you there, be safe.

(Light off, scene changes. Father will stand in the stage right, mother will stand in stage left. They will take turn reading their letters)

Father Letter 1:

Mother Letter 1:

Father Letter 2:

Mother Letter 2:

Father Letter 3:

Mother Letter 3:

Father Letter 4:

(Scene changes. Mother arrive in South Korea, she waits in the XXX building.)

M:

End

My character

   I will be acting as a female character in this adaptation of Children of the Sea. This character is a mother and a wife around age 37. She will not have a strong appearance, instead, she will be having an appearance that seems more weak and conservative to fit the role of women in both Krik Krak and North Korea. The appearance, closely related to the costume, of course will be fitting the location where the story happens---North Korea. Me and my partner are considering using clothes with simple, dark color, also wearing something simliar to each other to make it look like they're restricted and are workers. We might also research to see what North Koreans wear daily and try to find clothes that are alike them. This character will also start off with a worrying mind and showing lots of concern by her small, continuing steps walking around the stage. 

       Her motivation will be her love for her daughter that has escaped from North Korea and away from them; which is similiar to stories in Krik Krak, all the mothers that sacrificed for their daughter without hesitation. The story is also happening because of her and the husband's love towards their children. But moving later into the plot, her motivation for all the journals, letters she wrote down on her way escaping North Korea, is motivated by her love towards her husband who is also on his way to their daughter but seperately. How she realize that she have been leaning and depending on her husband, make her misses her husband more that causes her to write down letters to express her feelings that she haven't told her husband previously in the story.

       What my character and my partner's character both wanted is a reunion with their daughter, with each other, most of all, in a safe and liberal place. Obstacles they will meet are the soldiers around North Korea's border and also their long journey being separated from each other. Therefore, they choose to write down their fear and missing into letters, even though they are not able to being sent out to their lovers.