Introduction:
The story we chose was Caroline’s wedding from AUTHOR’s book Krik Krak. It was about Caroline, a disable girl, married an American instead of following her mother’s wish marrying a Haitian. This story contains many thoughtful thesis like the relationships between parents and children, the tight bond with their belongings, and culture difference. Caroline’s wedding was one of the core stories in the book and also was a perfect story to choose. As both a director and a performer, I see Caroline’s Wedding as a pure jade which has much space to carve.
Characterization in the story:
I was performing Caroline, who lost her forearm when she was born. In the story, she symbolized American culture because she was born in US, and the only connection between she and Haiti was her family. She grew up in American-like environment, so she had large culture difference with her mother. She was a strong character because she disobeyed her mother and chose to chase her happiness. Readers can simply imagine that Caroline depended a lot on her sister and her mother because she was disable person, and she always needed someone to take care of her during her entire growing procedure. Marrying Eric was the biggest decision she made, and it also represented her independence. Her father died when she was very young, so he barely contributed to build her personality and characterization. Her mother rise her up, and she was influenced by her mother. Caroline and her mother could not understand each other all the time, but they finally got agreement on Caroline’s wedding showed the deep love between them.
Characterization in our own adaptation:
As I mentioned before, Caroline’s father died early and she did not get much love from him while she was growing. However, she and her sister sometimes met their father in dreams. I think that was because they missed their father so much, so in our adaptation, we focused on portraying how dad interact with two daughters in their dreams. Dad left at the beginning of the story, and Caroline sat in her room alone, crying, which showed that she was a sensible girl, and she didn’t want tell everyone her sadness, so she didn't yell and cry infant of her mother and her sister. But she still felt lost for sure, she chose to bare it by herself because she didn’t want to add extra burden to her family. She was a naive girl. She believed in Grace easily that she could meet her dad in dream, if she didn't wear the red pant. In the first dream, she listened to her father’s advice and decided to be strong because she understood that was her father’s wish, and she didn’t want to let him down. In the other dream ten years after, she was beautiful and mature, but she still wanted to get permission for her marriage from her dad, which showed that she was a concerned person, and she cared about her family in her truly mind. She exposed her softness in front of her father, and she was ready to say goodbye to her past and welcome her new life. Through the entire play, she didn’t mention her disability in person, in order to show that she was a positive and optimistic person rather than a complaining person.
Difficulty in transitioning:
In the book, Caroline’s Wedding was told in Grace’s perspective, and it was important to bring up Caroline’s voice. Since the origin story didn’t talk much about how was her childhood like and how would she do if she meets her dad, it was challenging to decide her lines and actions just by imagine and deduce from the text. And our job was actually fill some of the blank parts of her life step.
Staging choice:
We separated the stage into three parts: stage left--reality, middle stage--dream, and stage right--heaven. Caroline’s moving areas were stage left and middle stage because she was an alive person. And on the stage left, was Grace and Caroline’s bedroom, and we used normal yellow light to light up that part of the stage. We used normal white lights to light up the right stage, heaven part, and we didn’t put anything right there in order to show the emptiness and quiet of the heaven. In the middle was the special area between alive and death, and it was magical and variable, so we used blue and red lights to indicate. During the first dream, the color choice for the middle part was blue and later changed to red to show the dead father was blocked outside her wife’s dream because she wore the “red pant”, when she slept. In the dream before Caroline’s wedding, the lights were both red and blue, which meant to create the atmosphere for the characters to talk about the “marriage” topic. This dream was the last chance for dead father to come back, so the complex light choice was also used to show the specialness of the dream.
Possible improvements:
Firstly, we need wiser staging preparation. For example, due to lack of practice, the lighting part was not completely following the directions, such as the red lights did not light up when the dead father was trying to entire his wife’s dream, which would confuse the audiences.
Secondly, more body languages. When I, as Caroline, was talking to Grace and father, sometimes I was standing still for more than five seconds, and that was not a good way to fully develop the character because audiences could only know about her by her lines. Because Caroline and Grace were not able to touch their father in the first and half part of the second dream, then we need to add more body interaction between Grace and Caroline to enhance their relationships.
Conclusion:
Caroline’s Wedding was one of my favorite stories in the book, and our own adaptation was creative because it started from more than one person’s perspective and even gave a position for the dead people. And it was focusing on portraying the relationships among characters in the imaginary world. Overall, I think we did a pretty good job on this task. Every group member contributed a lot, and we worked well together. The play held us tightly together, and honestly, I learned a lot not only from the task but also from my partners. Performing an American character and writing more than two thousand words script were very changeling for me as a non-native speaker. And when I finished all the work, I was very proud of myself.
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