What is your favorite bed-time story? The Tinderbox? The Thumbelina? Or the Princess and the pea? Thinking about fairy tale, the first person who jumps out from my mind must be Hans Christian Anderson. He is impressive for me not only because of his lively stories but also those heartbroken and meaningful endings(why meaningful). The most sorrowful but intriguing story on my list would be The Little Mermaid. I have read this fairy tale over and over again, from comical version to the actual text in English with tears filling my eyes every time. Pain, anger and regret stroke my heart dozens of times, and I just wanted to stop the innocent girl from sacrificing herself. Nevertheless, fairy tale seemed to be unrealistic, and I was forced to focus on the real world when I got older. As time passed, those painful eagerness gradually faded from my life and was locked at the bottom of my memory. All those impressive memories jumped out to me again when I read a much more realistic adaptation of The Little Mermaid, My Love, My Love, written by Rosa Guy. This novel transforms the main character into a peasant girl who always dreams about modern cities and precious love. She meets a man who is in danger and devotes everything to protect the man who gives her hope meanwhile destroys her life. Reading My Love, My Love, I felt my heart to be stroke by thousands of needles because more realism leads to more empathy. I imagine myself to be the protagonist Desiree and wonder why she would rather give up everything impetuously to pursue the illusory affection. This question haunts me during the entire process of preparing for the script, and I decide to deeply excavate Desiree’s mental changes with my partner to better understand her reasons for making these miserable decisions.
An old saying has stated that “Lookers-on see much more than players.” In order to comprehend the “game” completely, my group mate and I decided to design characters of both “plays” and “lookers”. To be specific, both me and him will have two characters to play: one is in the actual scene of Desiree’s love story while the other one is narrating and commenting on what she has experienced. The first two characters in Desiree's story were really obvious to pick: Desiree and her lover Daniel. However, who should be the narrators that could present my opinion and concerns? Who should be the one who really cares about Desiree and understands her best? Suddenly, a scene of the novel jumps out from my mind: “[The peasant girl]puts her hand around the butterfly and closed her eyes to make wishes.” In the novel, butterflies have appeared several times in different situation, indicating Desiree's changes about wishes and desire.
—How to set the personalities and functions of each character(desire and persistence)
—How to contrast butterfly and human(exaggerated movements and tones)
—How to arrange the settings and blocking
—Overall costumes, lights, music
Comedy, romance and tragedy
—My performance(especially dance, voice, sadness)
—How did all these work
(Eventually understand why she would rather give up her life because of love by actually acting her out and be moved by those romantic promises)
(Butterfly represents my own opinion and how I want to help her in my own way, kind like finishing my wishing since my childhood.)
没有评论:
发表评论