“You must do something meaningful”, my mind tells me: “you must do something which could represent your growth, transformation and improvements.” A scene thus emerges immediately: I was trying to memorize a monologue in a dark yellow sweater, and my face was as red as a tomato. My first project in public speaking class: “Dear John”! I still can remember how nervous and funny I was two years ago. Maybe it is the time to alter the past!
“Dear John”, a romance novel written by Nicholas Sparks, has depicted the love story of a couple during the man’s military service. Falling in love in a summer, Savannah and John promise each other to get together after John’s military service. They write letter when being separated and long for reunite until 911 breaks their hope: John is going to stay in the military. Eventually, Savannah writes John a breakup letter because of other reasons although she still loves him. In this novel, a monologue said by John when he was shot impresses me a lot since it contains extreme affection and a special means of expressing love.
The monologue is a really short flashback and confession of John’s experience from his childhood to the second he gets shot. In order to enlong the length and make the monologue an actually performance, I will create several scenes based on the monologue and need at least three performers for total.
They scene will start with old John, wearing a pair of glasses, sits on a comfy sofa and flips an photo album. Suddenly, a piece of paper drops, and he slowly picks it up. To make John old instead of a young man in battle, I want to show his everlasting love to Savannah which is not weakened by time. After he reads the first few sentences about his childhood with the coin factories, I will play the sound of coins dropping, and he will raise his head to reminiscence. At the same time, the other two characters will show up in front of him and act out his experience with related conversation. Then, John will continue reading the letter and recalling his memory. The alternation will occur several times until the end of the letter. Inspired by the show we watch in Broadway, I decide not give each actors more identities. To be specific, the two actors will play as multiple characters in John’s memory with distinctive costumes like suits, military unifor and medical uniforms. In the end, when he eventually finish reading the part about his lover and stops, a lady will show up, slowly walking to him. On the way to him, she will wear her glasses, cloak, white hairpiece and start talk to him. She is from the memory; she is the actual person who has accompanied him for the entire life. This ending is different from the novel, or the film adaptation where they do not get together although they wholeheartedly love each other. I always like to transform tragedy into happy ending whenever I see a sad story, and this time I can in fact video it! Isn't that fascinating?! Moreover, I would absolutely add many comedic factors in the romance as usual with the use of exaggerated movements and funny dialogue.
Cannot wait to start this project!
http://youtu.be/z-gfP7p1fTE
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