Last performance and reflection

Our groups own adaptation of the novel The Little Prince was the satisfying ending and the conclusion of our time in IB Literature and Performance.  Through this final project, I was able to develop insights into the little Prince’s story and his personalities as well as the characteristics of other main characters like rose, fox and the king when we planned the emotion needed to be express and certain actions needed to be conducted. Even though our play is not that long, the performance as a whole has indeed grasped the essence of the original novel in my perspective. In the four scenes that we created in our performance, we showed to the audience the trip of the little prince from the cause that pushed him to leave his rose to his return with the understanding of the concept of love taught by the fox.

I acted as the little prince in the play and since this character is the only one who was presented in every scenes, I demonstrated the little prince’s various emotions while he was communicating with different persons and his growth as a character. Little prince symbolizes the hope, love, innocence, and insight of childhood. Though the prince is sociable and meets a number of characters as he travels, he never stops loving and missing the rose on his home planet. He continually reminded himself of the rose in his planet and after showing that the little prince knows rose is “ephemeral” and is “in danger of speedy disappearance” from the King and realizes there is a flower that has already tamed him, it was quite natural in our adaptation that the prince eventually recognizes his love towards the rose.

The first time we took the “final draft” was not as fluent and vivid as we thought it should be, except group members’ issues in reciting lines, I did notice that I myself was not in the good state to express the prince’s emotions as I had planned and in the fox scene, I responded too quickly several times before Cherrie finished her lines. Thankfully, the actual final performance was excellent. All group members really devote their attention and effort into the play. Olivia acted out King’s arrogant, loneliness and impatient; Cherrie showed fox’s tenderness and sadness when the prince was destined to leave her; Sophia, as always, was just the real representation of the rose who has trouble of showing her love.

Adding famous songs interruptedly in the characters’ lines was quite original and I don’t know how they came up with that idea. Nonetheless, those sound effects actually somehow contributed to the overall success in some degree that I cannot really explain. Maybe those songs made the play more lighthearted or maybe those let the atmosphere be more enjoyable. This performance in generally made a great ending for this course in my junior year and I have made quite a lot improvement associated with acting until this time. It is worthy to select this course in my high school. :)

https://youtu.be/Iq6c0ZKsmh8

Gradually Approaching the Curtain Call

Generally speaking, the practice for the performance is unexpectedly fluent and as a group, we have achieved what we aimed for in each step. During the classes in the Black Box, our group well utilized our time to improve and stage our performance. Videoing the first draft gave us the confidence that after fixing some little problems and use other props in the final draft, our performance can be perfect. Sofia can undoubtedly show Rose’s emotion and her personality to the audience and Olivia can give a new impression of the King to others by substituting her real emotion and some personality into this character.  Sofia, especially, helped me to shape how I should read different lines specifically with the attitude of awkwardness. I like how we planned the movement and action during the fox scene in which I first pretended I can’t see Cherrie at first and during Cherrie’s speech of how to tame her, we both gradually stand closer until “I” eventually leave her ruthlessly. The only part of the performance that I don’t quite get it is the several occasions when we start to dance with modern songs. However, it indeed make the play more lively and relaxed. I personally feel that by doing those action, a kind of unexplainable joy could be sent to the audience even though the play is not a comedy.  

During the first draft of the play, our group did not really has a plan, with detail, of how we would act when the music started. As it turned out, those parts of performance was kind of in a small chaos. Thankfully, now we have regulated and changed our actions in those three parts. Hopefully, Oiliva, Cherrie and I won’t forget our lines during the final recording. In the rest of time, I definitely need to practice recording my lines. This task of memorization was not that hard since most of the time, I just need to give an natural and simple response to other’s actions and words. I ought to work more on my delivery of lines and the volume of speaking. Besides, I noticed that I need to face the audience more as I went through the video of my first draft. At least, my body and face should not completely face towards the characters that I am talking to.

In Julie’s group, I like their idea of letting James stay behind the stage and act as Madame Sofronie. His voice changed dramatically and the sound really let the audience visualize the appearance of an old and mean lady in their mind. In Ben’s group, they are quite creative in setting this story as their performance. The first flashback was kind of confusing as the scene suddenly changed while Jamai was supposed to be still in the scene of the show. However, as the play progressed, I can easily realize that there were several flashback. However, I did not see the clear connection between the flashbacks and Jamai being in the show.

A new form of play shown in CA

The performance overall consists several pieces of independent funny stories and it indeed succeeded in bringing laughter among the audiences. In every small scene, there were plots that  were noticeably funny. Many actors or actresses in the play demonstrated their strong ability to mimic other people in the real life. The beginning of the play was quite impressive as political candidates and their daughters presented in a “show”. All the actors all dressed like the people they represented, especially the actress of Hillary Clinton let me recognize with character she was acting like instantly. Another scene that attracted me so much was just like the scene that many other students would like the most. During the morning meeting plot, most people almost laughed after every lines. Especially Ms. Anderson, Mr. Dykeman and Mr. McBreen’s characters were just like the real ones. The proper costumes, like the CA clothes that Mr. McBreen always wears, and pops, like the paper coffee cup that John held, played a huge role in making the morning meeting such realistic and funny. Ms. Anderson’s little jokes’ plot also gave us so much fun during the play. Music and song were greatly implemented in the play. “John Jiang the Latte Boy” and John’s later response to the girl were full of a nice rhythm and they are both quite pleasant to the ears.

Unavoidably, there are little flaws in the play. Sometimes the jokes might be a little hard to understand as the teachers and other parents side laughed while it was extremely quiet in the student audience side. Besides, sometimes it was hard to hear clearly some characters’ lines. Moreover, I thought the swan scene can be improved because the audience only laughed during the part when there were cross-dressing performers appeared on the stage. Nonetheless, this play definitely gave me the motivation to see future CA plays in my senior year.

           

Great Start of the End

I think comparing with other groups’ progress of writing script, our task is a little bit easier since The Little Prince itself mainly tells the story through conversation between the little prince and other characters instead of narration and other description. However, we still faced the main difficulty when we tried to maintain the basic storyline while condensed the lines of the little prince as brief and essential as possible because the little prince, acted by me, is presented in every scene in our adaptation. Sometimes, we found that every word that he said was important to the overall development of the story and we hesitated a lot during the process in which we wrote the lines of the little prince. Still, even though we finished the script, improvements are still needed because I think we have written too much and I am afraid that I might lose myself in those overwhelmingly lengthy lines.

Don’t get me wrong though, I think our script in other parts is definitely good enough and the idea of letting the King act with the unique and obvious personalities of other inhabitants in different planets is brilliant. The plot of the adaption basically comes from the original story except the ending part in which we added a scene that the little prince and rose meet again in this small planet. So far, our group is working pretty well with all members participating in the project even though I think I could have participated more in writing the script. I love to see that other members, especially Oliva,  are all quite excited and immersed in doing this adaptation. I think Olivia and Sophia can really give a compelling performance of their characters to the audience. I hope this performance will perfectly summarize the ending of this course and this year.

            

         

Final Project Proposal： Unsettling Dream

The story that I want to choose and adapt to the play is “A Wall of Fire Rising” from the book Krik Krak written by a Haitian writer Edwage Danticat. Krik Krak is a series of emotional short stories with separated plot yet interlinked knowledge. “A Wall of Fire Rising”, in particular, shows how a common Haitian family arduously keeps living in a hopeless place. Guy’s family, like most other Haitian families, lives in a insecure and poor life. They drink “drops of rainwater from a gasoline” and they sometimes “boiled clean sugarcane pulp” , “which is used to suppress gas and kill the vermin in the stomach that made poor children hungry”, as their food. Guy, as the main person who supports the whole family, does not have a formal job, and the only thing he can do is pray everyday that he can find a part-time job. Some will argue that everyone has an opportunity to have a better life as long as he or she is hardworking and has a heart that desires improvement. However, in Haiti during that time period, this is not that case.

Later, Guy is looking forward to work in a sugar mill, but finds out that even his position of cleaning the toilet is number seventy-eight on the permanent hire waiting list. The ending of the story is where the most dramatic and meaningful part. Guy sees the hot-air balloon on the field of the sugar mill and becomes obsessed by it. He keeps watching others “flying” the hot-air balloon and thinks that he could one day manage that balloon to fly away and seeks something new. He once tells his thoughts to his wife and is harshly criticized, reminding himself that he has at least a wife and son to look after. Yet, one day, Guy still sneaks into the hot-air balloon and actually manages to let the balloon lift-off. Sadly, when realizing that the balloon does not has the power of leading him to a new life, Guy jumps off the balloon and dies in front of his family.

Through the adaptation of this whole short story, I want to show the conflicts between love of the family and the pursuit of dream. There will be basically two kinds of setting of the scenes: the scenes happening in guy’s house and the scenes happening in the sugar mill. The play will start with the family trying to use bowl to get “drinking” water that is leaked from the roof and end with the part that Lily, the wife of Guy, covers little Guy’s eyes and little Guy reciting the lines from his play over Guy’s dead body, saying that “I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piecing cry that we may either live freely or we should die”. Because many of the aspects that cannot be shown in the play, the rainy weather, the launch of the balloon and Guy’s fall in the the ground will be demonstrated by sound effects. The rising of balloon can be shown through Guy walking gradually upstairs and eventually jump-down with facial expression of despair. 

           

Time is precious :(

The examen questions overall did not overwhelmingly surprised me and in both examen one and two, there were questions closely associated with what we have learned and discussed in the class. It was quite lucky that I attended the last review time right before the examen 2 and comprehended the meaning and the purpose of second stanza in the poem " my grandma in the star" through teacher's analysis of this stanza phrase by phrase so that I could be able to choose the question which referred to the importance of different stanzas in the poems.

Sadly, I overestimated the time I actually had during the examen. I was under the impression that since I could already write that much in the in-class writing time frame, 90 minutes examen time can give me many time to consider my sentences and paragraphs structure, word choice and content. During the examen, however, I spent more time that I had imagined on those thinking process and when the time was over, I still had many content I “planned” to write in the essay. The same misjudgment happened again during my examen 2 when I wrote down the poem on the essay paper and spent time on my word choice. Nonetheless, writing down the poem did give me advantages with which I was able to analyze the topic clearly and especially, the prompt I chose need me to look at the poems stanza by stanza. The lesson that I learned from this IB examen is always plan the time ahead and write the essay with the knowledge that I am not a fast writer. Time is precious:(. 

Notes

Patterns, aimed at the mind, the heart or the ear of the reader, are used by poets to 
achieve their purposes. In the work of at least two poets you have studied, examine various 
patterns and their effects.

The two poem that I will discuss: My Grandma in the Stars and Hope is the thing with feathers. Hope is the thing with feathers has four stanzas each with 4 lines and My Grandma in the stars even though has varied lines in each stanzas, has distinct meaning in each Stanzas.

Hope.... : the use of dashes and the feeling they bring to readers, the repeated words “and” “that”, the meaning of hope as bird carries through the whole poem

Grandma....: “on earth” & “with dust”, different meanings of stanzas

It is possible we will not meet again

on earth. To think this fills my throat

with dust. Then there is only the sky

tying the universe together.

Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing

patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day

to open. What you think of him,

and the village’s one heroic cow,

is the knowledge I wish to gather.

I bow to your rugged feet,

the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.

Where we live in the world

is never one place. Our hearts,

those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us

moons before we are ready for them.

You and I on a roof at sunset,

our two languages adrift,

heart saying, Take this home with you,

never again,

and only memory making us rich.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.