Oral Presentation

\My Love, My Love is an adaptation of the well-known tale: The Little Mermaid. They both narrates the love story between two people with distinctly different identities. I had one chance to read through the original version of the Little Mermaid and figured out that the true plot was far from the Disney’s fairy tale version of the same story. Like the Peasant Girl, the Little Mermaid never had the fortune to truly seize her love. In order to show the universality that many fairy tales share, our group decided to adapt the story into the setting of the Little Red Riding Hood because the journey that Ti Moune take to find her “true Love”, Daniel, is quite similar to the journey that the little red riding hood takes to get to her Grandma’s house. Besides, there are lowa Erzulie, who embodies the kind wood-chopper who willing to help the main character, and Papa Ge, who embodies the wolf who never stops trying to ruin her life. The performance still did mainly based on the original plot and we tried to perform those scenes to show the similarity between two story, which will be mentioned later.

I act mainly as Daniel, who appears to be fragile because of the pain from injury when he first comes to the sight of the audiences. He is the representation of Grandma who does not have the power to resist the outside malice. However, with the help from Ti Moune, he recoveries from his pain and develops the feeling of love and dependence on Ti Moune. Papa Ge, while they are both immersing in happiness, tries to interfere their relationship by befuddling Daniel and using his power to take over the control of Daniel’s body with a false aim of leading Daniel to his true love. Therefore in the performance, I, as Daniel, acted without reciting lines myself while Papa Ge behind me actually spoke “through” me. This part of performance represents how the wolf tries to be grandma after he swallows her. However, the different way that I acted as Daniel and all those rude actions and sentences let Ti Moune eventually realized that I was possessed by Papa Ge, echoing the plot in which the little red riding hood sees through the faked appearance of Grandma outside the door. Unfortunately, Daniel later actually fell in love with Andrea because of her elegance and beauty. Ti Moune, with her sadness and unwillingness to let it go, asked if Daniel wanted her to leave and Daniel gave her the answer: being the servant of the house because they loved to have her around. I emphasized on the fact that we ( Andrea and I) “both” don’t want her to leave and it were both of us that loved her, excluding any form of individual relationship with me and Ti Moune.  

Our performance mainly stayed in the center of the stage and there are mainly two scenes: the scene in the forest which is the road to the hotel and the scene in the hotel where Daniel and Ti Moune meet. Our background is also painted with trees and two community (the rich and the poor) on two opposites. Our costumes and sounds were all carefully chose in order to really put actors into the characters.

                 

Self-examination from the rehearsal

We have applied the elements in the story Little Red Riding Hood into the play of the peasant girl. The novelty of showing this topic with the proper performance can be relatively easy to notice. The aim of our group is to show the how fairy tales all share some universal plots to some extent and  how fairy tales are usually differ from the real life situation. All the characters in the Little Red Riding Hood are symbolized in our play （Papa Ge as wolf, Ti Moune as little red riding hood and Daniel as Grandma） except the Hunter, who supposes to save “Ti Moune” and “Daniel”. In our play, the love between Daniel and Ti Moune is eventually defeated by reality even with the help from the god, Erzulie.

From today’s rehearsal, I find out there are especially two  parts where I should focus to work on with other group member.  First one is the start of first scene where Daniel is suffering from pain and Ti Moune is trying to comfort him. Olivia and I both need to have more confidence and be more “professional” because we really need to show how Ti Moune can actually let Daniel feel that she is the one who is different and can give him hope. I do admit when I perform this part i just want to muddle through the part where Ti Moune should hug Daniel and let him lay down. For future performance, Olivia should really hug me with emotions and I should show the relief I feel under her arms.  Second part is when Papa Ge controls Daniel, I suppose to make some certain actions simultaneously when Leo says certain lines, but in the rehearsal, my actions are always slower than his lines. We need to practise more on that and try to find a pace that we can both agree upon. Other small details in the play are not clear or being realistic. For instance, I did not show the confusion when Papa Ge no longer possesses Daniel and I the shift of focus to Andrea is a little bit abrupt.  I need to work more on this and let the change from confusion of current situation to obsession with Andrea be viewed more natural by the audiences.

The later part of the play is where I feel much more comfortable with. I am quite pleased with the emotions and movement that I put into my performance with Andrea and Ti Moune. I show the love to Andrea and the reluctance to let Ti Moune go because of Andrea’s willingness to keep Ti Moune as a people, more like a pet,  who can humor them. Besides, I am satisfied that I can recite my lines without any hesitation and know exactly when all the other group members’ lines end now. In this rehearsal, I truly see the effort of all of our group members to make a better performance than before.