5 top choices

1. Betty.
Because it is my own adaptation, and I really like ghost staff that is my interest. Besides, I think if the whole play is well-developed, it will be very creative and attractive.

2. The combination of Chantelle and Nancy
At first, I think Nancy's story is not persuade enough, but if Chantelle's thoughts can be added in, it will be more reasonable. And the whole idea is very great.

3. Sam
I also really like 1937 this story because the fire wings stuff hits me a lot. I feel like this story has many interesting and meaningful things can be told. But it is really challenging.

4. Johnny
I really like the idea of choosing between American culture and Haiti hometown. And also the love struggle in it. That is so interesting. And I think his adaptation is the one which is the most likely to be modernized.

5.  Abby
The starting point of view is very special which also connected with only of the themes of the book which is women voice.

proposal

Proposal

I was inspired by the videos from last year students. I think tell the story in other characters’ perspective is a really interesting way to create our own adaptation. Lifting out of one character I like, and portray his/her personality deeper.

Story:

I always want to start from a ghost, and that is my favorite. Also because there are many people die in those stories, so I think it would be easy. 

In the heaven, Caroline’s father (in Caroline’s wedding)  could see what happen in the alive human world. And also the time in heaven is not the same as the human world (so we can combine many stories together). Since Caroline’s father died, he has always been looking at his two daughter especially Caroline in heaven because he cared so much about his disability little daughter. So I would make the scene like the father suddenly wakes up and realizes that he’s already dead. Then he finds the place where can see the living human world. At first, he does not get used to the fact of his death, he always wants to talk or hug his family naturally. So he always feels like to come back to their side. And also because his daughters does not follow their mother’s directions wearing red at night, and the ghost father is able to come into their dreams to kind of guide them and see them sometimes. So in my scene, I would like to focus on the indirect connections between father and daughter. Maybe it’s like he sees his daughter do some stupid things, and he is worried about them, then he gets really hurry and says something like “Oh, little trouble markers! I need to come to them again!” Also I try to show the relationship between parent and children, and how much actually they love them.  

Characters:

There can be 2 or 3 characters in this play because we can have both Caroline and Grace in the scene or only focus on Caroline or Grace is ok. 

Father: He has got so much to worry about his daughter because he thinks his daughters are too young to live without him.  He is very gentle and nice, and he always wishes he could protect his family from such far distance. He loves his wife and when he come back and sees his wife wearing red, he sighs and thinks about that for a long time and always showing his understanding. (I don’t want to add another character here but we can turn on the red light to show he is not able to come his wife’s dream. I would think about the staging of this part.) 

Daughter: Strong and grows up quickly without father’s love. But sometimes they cry at night lonely because they miss their father. (When the father sees they cry, he would be very sad). There is a certain number of times the father could come to their dreams. As they growing older, they understand things better and can handle their emotions. And the chance for the father to come becomes less and less.

And the last time is Caroline’s wedding.

Review of Endgame

Review of Endgame.

“Endgame” means “endless game” in this play because I believe something is being passed through the generations even though they were not biologically fathers and sons.

In my opinion, this play was very meaningful and hard to lift out the mean point of it, and different people have different focusing and understanding of it. After all, I felt I learnt a lot from it. 

First of all, a hard play can challenge my ability of analyzing it. And as I mentioned in the class, I believe this play was trying to show some cycles/patterns between father and son, love and being loved and also dependent and independent. Talking about the little boy, I still think there is actually a little right there, or at least Clov can see him, and that might symbolize he sees himself. Because of the “father and son” pattern, I imagine that the story before this play was probably like Hamm is serving his father, Hamm was the one who can only stand, and his father can only sit. And then later, when Hamm was not able to stand any more, it was the time that his father lost his legs and went to “live” inside the “coffin”. I am still not sure whether Hamm’s parents were alive or not. Then Clov became the one who served as a son. So in my opinion, Hamm’s next step is probably same as his father, and Clov’s next step is like was Hamm is like right now. And there will be a young man who joins in and serves as a son. This is an endless cycle. 

I also wondered did the play want to portray the relationships between father and son, or the meaning for love? Which part did it mainly focus on? The character Clov can move freely, and actually he did not need to obey Hamm. And think the reason why he always listened to Hamm was he felt lonely, and in his mind, this little space, this disable man was his belonging. The whole word was destroyed, and that is why he has no where to go. This was how Clov depended on Hamm. And of course, Hamm needed to depend on Clov because he was blind and cannot move without others help. He could not do anything by himself. He needed Clov, his son, very much. So what is the meaning of life, if it is the end of the world? Doing aimless thing? Why these four characters still wanted to be alive in this kind of world? There were so many things I do not understand. 

Talking about the actors, I think they were wonderful. I really admired the way Clov and Hamm controlled their voice and tones such perfectly and used the staging stuff caught audiences’ attentions. I think this play is a tragedy, but they were still trying to illuminate some humor things out. Those humor definitely lighted up the play many times. 

Another thing is I was really interested in the way they painted the background-half white&half grey, and the separation of two colors was right at the half of the little windows-which was really interesting, but I could not get the meaning of it. The settings on the stage were just funny to think about, and also the size of two coffins are different. 

Overall, this play was just great, and I really glad I had this chance to watch it.

Reflection

The characters we lifted out were Caroline in Caroline’s weeding, New York day woman and her daughter in New York Day Woman. The reason I choose them is Caroline’s family and the New York day woman’s family are both immigrants came from Haiti and live in the United States for a long time, so it is reasonable for them to appear in one place and know each other. Besides, I am really interested in the relationship between New York day woman and her daughter, and I am also curious about the following story of the original New York Day Woman in the book, so I make up one. Besides, I also want to show the relationship between different Haitians immigrants families. And in the play we wrote, these two Haitian families are friends because they once got into the “illegal immigrants event” together, which shows immigrants’ similar harsh experiences. And that is why they form a strong community and hold ceremonies sometimes. I think all of these settings are well connected with each other and also with the book. In our script, we also brought up some background information about Caroline, such as her mother makes her bone soup everyday, because details can make the story full and rich. 

Talking about the specific characters, we try to make the personalities of each character clear and vivid. For example, Caroline, a 6-year-old girl, is young and native, who even has not started noticing her disability will effect her life. So we add many lively words in her lines. And we even make some connections between the Night Women by talking about the little fairies. And New York day woman she is an old gentle lady. In scene 1, her daughter asks her about when did she start to do baby-sitting, she does not give any responses, and we can see she is tired of arguing and explaining. And this also shows that she scarcely speaks because of her personality and also because she has experienced many things. She does not expect her daughter’s understanding. And for Caroline, she is mature because she is a working adult, and she suppose to be able to understand her mother, but actually she still feels unfair in her mind. That is why I leave the monologue of her“ Caroline has her parents’ love, but you gave your love to those kids you’ve taken care of” as the ending of the play. This shows that even though the daughter has grown up, she still could not convince herself when she sees her mother cares more about other children. 

Background info of Endgame

(All information came from the attachment)

Director:

Why chose to direct Endgame?

All those things you associate with Beckett – codependent couples, the manipulation of time on stage, specific but ultimately indeterminable locations, searingly memorable imagery, a preoccupation with bodily functions, aging and death, a tragicomic humor in despair – are expressed in a very pure and distilled form in Endgame. Also, Endgame manages all this while still being a play written in relatively recognizable dramatic form and length, unlike Beckett’s later short work. 

Plot:

CHARACTERS 

Hamm – unable to stand, blind
Clov – servant of Hamm, unable to sit
Nagg – Hamm’s father, without legs, lives in a dustbin 

Nell – Hamm’s mother, without legs, lives in a dustbin 

CAST 

Colin Friels
Luke Mullins
Rhys McConnochie Julie Forsyth

Mix of comedy and tragedy. Four characters live in a little room outside is the dead world.  Hamm sits on the wheelchair for the whole play. And his step-son Clov serves him with broken leg. Hamm’s parents Nagg and Nell live inside the garbage bin. It describes an endless world with dark and weird atmosphere. 

Theme:

Endgame is a play in one act. There is a clear beginning and end to the play. Between those two points, the dialogue concerns the interactions and musings of the four characters who inhabit the world. 

Theater style:

Samuel Beckett’s plays are generally considered to sit within the theatre tradition known as ‘Theatre of the Absurd’. The following two sources seek to explain what is meant by this theatrical movement. 

Endgame is performed in a proscenium arch configuration in The Sumner which allows both the set and the actors to be framed within the playing space. The Sumner is a very contemporary proscenium arch theatre, quite different in design and aesthetic to other proscenium arch theatres you may have been to such as The Regent, Her Majesty’s or The Princess. 

Background information of the play:

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers. However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one. Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-thirsty rule of his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’ decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the international community as well as their delayed entry into World War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians. After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity. Postwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and interventionist approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable. 

The role of storytelling

Telling story is a tradition for Haitians’ family. There are many memoriable histories and fables pass through generation by generation by storytelling. Haitians tell what they hear from their mother to their children while they are braiding hair. Another reason storytelling is important is because writer was a dangerous job for people in Haiti at that time. They would be killed cruelly. Then writing is substituted by storytelling, since normal people choose passing customs down orally. So storytelling for Haitians is like writing for the author. She wrote “When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity” (192, Danticat) and “You remember thinking while braiding your hair that you look a lot like your mother” (192) in epilogue. Braiding hair and storytelling exist deeply in their culture which means they will always remember what they have been through and take those memories as motivations to inspire people. 

Sometimes, storytelling also could be a ray of sunlight in the dark cold night. It actually can light up hope for people to chase. In The Night Women, the mother is a prostitute, and she always tells bed-time stories when her son goes to sleep. Many of those stories are fairy tales becuase she tries to her son believe that the happy fairy well come by their side one day and also makes herself believe their future is still have hope no matter how hard the life is right now. Those unrealistic stories support her to continue this harsh job for raising her young and giving him opportunity to get education. Storytelling is important because it actually supports Haitians spiritually. 

Histories and traditions are passed down by storytelling. No matter where you are, you should always remember who are you and where are you from because that is your identities and your belonging. That place and that group of people will give you a feeling of home. In Caroline’s wedding, even those immigrants came to the United States for a long time, that old generation still remember Haiti--their hometown. They tell their children about their own experiences such as how they came to American and what had they been through. And they always emphasize that they are Haitians and hope their children could retain their cultures. Another example is when Grace and Caroline’s father died, their mother told them to were black and white and red. I believe this is an old tradition that only they have. And they will remember this tradition because that was what their mother told them. 

“Someone says, Krik? You answer, Krak! And they say, I have many stories I could tell you, and then they go on and tell these stories to you, but mostly to themselves.” (12) The title of the book Krik? Krak! is like a contact password of telling a story, which symbolizes that the whole book is telling stories. The author wants to use the storytelling way to tell the readers about Haitians’ live. 

Quiz 3

Setting: The New York day woman (Haitian) takes care of Caroline(8 year-old) on the weekend. New York day woman is Caroline’s parents’ friend. Caroline is too young to go to Haitian funeral, so her parents ask New York day woman to take care of her for a day in New York Central Park.

Character:

Nancy: New York Day woman（M)

Betty: New York Day woman's daughter (D)

Chantelle: Caroline in Caroline’s wedding (C)

Scene One:

At night New York Day Woman’s daughter talks with her mom about the job---

D: Mom, I saw you take care of little kids in Central  Park today. When did you start to do this?

M: (Hesitate for a while) Well, you don’t need to know that much.

D: Fine, mom. I just want to tell you that I don’t need to go to work tomorrow. So... I’ll come with you.

M: (sigh) I bet you don’t, but it’s up to you. I agreed to help my friend take care of her little daughter tomorrow. It might be busy.

Scene two:

Next day---

(Nancy and Betty come to Central Park. Chantelle is already there)

M: Hi sweety. How are you?

(Nancy sits down along with Chantelle. Betty stands behind Nancy, keeping a fair distance and looking at Chantelle)

C: Great. Granny! Um… Who are you? (Chantelle speaks and turns to Betty)

B: I am her daughter. Nice to meet you.  (eye rolling)

（Nancy looks at Betty furiously)

C: Oh! Hi! I am Caroline! Welcome to join us today!(wave hand to Betty，swing legs)

(face back to Nancy) Granny, mom made bone soup this morning! AGAIN!

M: That’s fine. It’s good for you. (Nancy strikes Chantelle’s hair)

C: But I think I’m done with it! Oh, Granny, I wanna tell you a secret!

M: Oh! What's that?

(Chantelle sits closer to Nancy, whisper in Nancy’s ear)

C: I prayed last night. I wish my arm can grow overnight.

(Betty leans forward, noticing Chantelle’s empty sleeve, Betty is shocked)

M: Oh sweetie, I believe one day those little fairies will hear you.

     (Nancy puts one hand into her pocket, looking for something)

Here’s a soda for you!

C: Thank you!

(take the lollipop by one hand)

M: Where are your parents? Yesterday your mom told me she would pick you up at 6.

C: Um...Mom said they need to go to a ceremony... Um... for some dead people! It’s really important she said, and they will come back during afternoon.

M: Is your sister doing ok?

C: Yes. She is outside with mom and dad.

D( aside to mom): Is it the ceremony for Haitians?

M: Yes it is.

Scene Three:

Back home---

(Betty gives mom a glass of water)

D: Mom, what happened to Caroline’s forearm?

M: It is all this evil capitalism’s fault.

D: Why?

M: As I told you before...Many of Haitians who came to this country, trying to seek for hope… We were arrested because we came here illegally…. Caroline’s mom and I met each other in prison. When she came in, she was manic, so guardians locked her up alone. Although she was pregnant, they still gave her a shot in order to calm her down. God knows what kind of poison was inside that shot. The next time I saw Caroline and her mom, that baby’s sleeve was already empty.

D: Oh, poor Caroline. But lucky.

M: How come?

D:(Speak to Nancy) Nothing.

  (Nancy exits)

  (Betty silently walks away, facing back to Nancy and says to herself) Caroline has her parents’ love, but you give your love to those kids you’ve taken care of.  

In class writing

I remember that she said the society should be a beloved community, and Ms. Max also asked a question about this point. The author told a story about people from many different countries had to stay together for a long time because of the disaster. At this point, they were recognized as a community. And then they started to share their own stories, which held them tightly together, and the relationships between them were close and strong. She thought this was a really good thing that for us in a place where has variable cultures to get on well with each other and to even become a beloved family. It has some connections with the book, too. In Caroline’s wedding, it says Haitians immigrants usually gather together in the ceremony for announcing the dead people list. Even though they did not know each other before, but they always remember that they came from the same hometown. The Haitians’ society is very united and pretty strong. 

blog post 7. Difference and similar of women's lives in Haiti and America

In the book Krik? Krak!, women were basically all from Haiti and some moved to America as immigrants, and some stayed in Haiti. They changed quite a lot when they moved to America and started their new lives. And the first half of this book mainly discusses people stayed in Haiti, and the other half are about people who came to America. 

In general, female workers were not being respected at that time, and they could not get normal jobs like men did. I believe that was because the strong racism. Women supposed to stay at home taking care of their children. As a result, women’s status were really low. Their jobs were almost somehow depended on others. For example, the night woman’s job is prostitute which gains money from men, and New York day women’s job is gaining money by taking care of other people’s children. They could not do jobs depending on their knowledge because they did not get education. So life is hard for all working women in both places. 

However,Haiti was not well-developed as America, so getting jobs for women is even more difficult in Haiti. If they could not depend on their husband, it is reasonable for them to become prostitutes. Working at night also fitted the depressive atmosphere in Haiti, and it kind of represents people’s desires and social disorder. It says in the Night Women some women in Haiti do day-time jobs such as selling things but they only get a little and irregular paid. As a conclusion, they were poor and less independent.  Nearly all of them mentioned in the book suffered in a hard life.

For women coming to America. They needed to always living under a label “foreigner” which also created difficulties for them. Although they left their homeland, they still always remained themselves who they are and where they are from. And this kind of feeling showed clearly especially on the first generation immigrants. However, since New York was a busy city, there were more opportunities and possibilities for women to get variable jobs rather than just be a prostitute. There was many more ways for them to make a living. Also, it was safer here in America. They were able to have a stable and sweet family. On the other hand, the disconnection between the rich and the poor was very large, so poor women even in New York were still very inferior. No matter how well they adapted the environment, they would still be overwhelmed by the crowds as the story describes. However, they did not have to choose to be prostitutes working at night thanks to the environment they were in. So their lives were absolutely different than women’s lives in Haiti. Because this complex and busy environment shaped them quite well, their personalities were more determined, independence and experienced. That also because they were brave enough to leave their home land and make a change. But in they needed to work even harder than women in Haiti because the living requirements are higher and difficult to reach in America.  

In a word, because women in both areas could fit in the social well, and they could not gain equality, they must have similar unhappy experiences.  

notes

in-class writing

Discuss the tone of the story.(narrator’s perspective on her life and the magical style she uses to tell her son about it.)

As I read through the story, I found out that the night woman’s job is to have sex with “visitors”  and gain money from them. At the beginning of the story, the tone the narrator describes her son and her dead husband is gentle and gratified which shows that she loves them so much. When she sees her son under the sun rays, she feels that her son is growing and trustful. Her son is very young who even needs bed stories to go to sleep, so I can deduce the reason the narrator chooses this job is because her husband dies, and she still needs to gain money to raise her son. Normally, this kind of job is not acceptable by the public because it is kind of degrading (at least this is not a pleased job). And the one detail of the woman who smokes after she’s done of her job also shows the life for her is very depressive and hard. However, I believe the reason of she still does this job is her love to her son. 

It is hard to image how strong the love is for a mother, and it actually encourages the night woman to still be alive to face tomorrow bravely. Because her son is her only hope, and she wishes she could give her son a bright future such as gaining chances for her son to receive education. Sometimes, her son wakes up in the middle of the night and sees strange men in the house ( It is so poor that he and his mother lives in one-room house, and his mother does work right behind the curtain), his mother always tells him that is his father comes back from the heaven. I feel really sad when I read this part because I think that she doesn't want her son to know her really job which might because she does not want her son have any burden about her job. She also tries to benumb herself that those men are not visitors. And I am impressed about how strong this inferior woman is! 

Fly

                               Fly

Hundreds of years before, human always dreamed about flying to sky, so in many areas like scientific studies and literary works, people were trying hard to reach this goal through different aspects.  Focusing on the literary features, flying has many meanings such as chasing dream, desire of freedom and even death. And actually, in the book Krik? Krak! this action also helps to pass some complicate implications. 

The theme of flying appears in both 1937 and A Wall of Fire Rising. One is the narrator’s mother has fire wings and can fly; the other one is Guy rids the hot-air balloon flying and finally dies. It is interesting that in the book there are many separated little stories, but we can still find many unexpected connections between them. 

In 1937 and A Wall of Fire Rising, fly themes both symbolize some deep spiritual expressions. In 1937, voodoo practicers (women) were massacred, and in the story the narrator’s mother was described as one of those group of women who survived from that disaster. They got out of the blood river, which seems like they were on fire. And flying symbolizes that they escaped from the massacre. And because they practiced voodoo, some of those women were arrested in the prison till they die. “And before the women went to sleep, the guards made them throw tin cups of cold water at one another so that their bodies would not be able to muster up enough heat to grow those wings made of flames, fly away in the middle of night, slip into the slumber of innocent children and steal their breath.”(p32) Because those women in the prison practiced voodoo which is seemed as evil magic, the guards were actually afraid of them. This shows that those women were powerful in others’ eyes  who caught and tortured them. Flying symbolizes their power and the ability to free themselves and fight against their destiny. And fly also represents a spirit passing through generations. “Our mothers were the ashes and we were the light. Our mothers were the embers and we were the sparks. Our mothers were the flames and we were the blaze.” (35) Over decades, those women were persistent for their religion, their identity and their rights. If they do not get what they want, they will keep fighting for their goal, so as their following generation. This has already become a belief in their spirits and existed as long as any one of them alive. The sentence “ ‘Let your flight be joyful’, she said, ‘and mine too.’” (36) are mentioned twice. “‘Let her flight be joyful,’ I said to Jacqueline. ‘And mine and yours too.’”(42) The first time is said by manman, and I believe she means that she wishes her daughter’s life journey could be free and happy. As a mother, seeing her own daughter becomes strong and mature day by day is a kind of pleasure. And in my opinion, she also wants her daughter to remember the heavy historical mission on their shoulders and to be a strong woman in the future.  Also for herself, she knew about her ending when she was caught, but she was not afraid because she has done with hers mission. And death is one a way to free herself. The second time the narrator said that sentence means that she understands her mother’s wish and becomes determined about what she should do in the future which shows this faith passes through generation successfully. The author does not tell the meaning of fly directly, but we still could understand it according to the historical content of that time period which is really impressive that this story has very strong spirit of the times. 

Also in A Wall of Fire Rising, fly represents freedom, but it is just an unreachable wish. Poor people in low status could not gain truly free even though they find (steal) way to “fly”. Guy is a very typical example. He is a representative of poor people at that time. Although he is a man, he is inferior and aimless. He could not feed his family, so he is angry about rich people, angry about his family and even angry about himself. Sadly, the situation could not be changed regardless the efforts he paid. It seems like he will be a worker, a looser, forever, so he wants to escape. He always wants to ride the hot-air balloon because he wants to fly above others heads and to be remembered.  He thinks flying could give him joys and fulfills his dream. But finally he dies as he jumps out of the basket which indicates that the reality could not be changed when you try to escape from it. Flying still could not give you what you want. 

At that time period and that region, pressure from racism and social status were suppressing poor people. And they were suffering of the inequality. Both stories have flying theme, but they have partial same and partial different meanings. Overall, flying is a way of chasing freedom in both stories. The difference is whether it is the right way to reach the goal. And the author tries to express this common spiritual faith of those people for not only their rebellion but also their suicide.

Notes

In-class writing (2 quotes)

1. "I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles."

2. "If a woman is worth remebering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have hername carved in letters."

The understanding of 1st quote: 

It seems like the author met many amazing people who have inspired her before. And she learnt from their stories and experiences. However, future and dreams are extremely far and hard for them to reach. The more and bigger dream you have, the harder and tougher for you to get it. They might suffer because the goal they are chasing, and they would be stopped by the tremedouse obstacles they are facing. 

In the second story 1973, the "my mother" has "flame wings", and she flew when she was at the M. River. In the prison my mother died, those women were all considered flying people. They are special, and of course they have unbelievable admissions (otherwise, they would not be able to fly), so they were caught, became prisioners and ended their lives. Those obstacles were so big which stopped them completely.

Besides, connected with the second quote, those flying people were women, and they were worth writing and worth remebered.