Oral presentation

1.

I combined the story of “The Wall of Fire Rising” and “Night Women” in the book Krik Krak by Edwidge Danticat. They were appealing to me since it strongly reflected today’s society, especially the gap between different social classes and the way that poor people are facing povertiness. It further showed general Haitians’ life very well, not only about the povertiness but also the women’s life who had to go through without husbands. If other stories mostly focused on Haitians’ poverty and the unfair treatment that the Haitians received from government, the combination story of  “The Wall of Fire Rising” and “Night Women” more highlighted on a woman’s life who lost her husband, and further showing how her life has been harder and tougher.

Night woman is not the story which can only happened in fantasy story, it is actually  happening all over the country so frequently. Even in my city, my country, there are lot women around me who’s suffering from living as a single mom. Since I am a same teenage woman,  I strongly felt pathetic to young teenage haitian woman who should be responsible to take care of family by herself. I wanted to think and speak while standing in their perspectives, think about this harsh society which makes uneducated poor people harder to live.

2. We combined those two stories while focusing on the two characters Little Guy and Lili. I thought these two are more important than Guy since he died in the first story and Little Guy and Lili are the actual characters who showed the extreme povertiness in Haiti. The theme that we showed through our adaptation were misery, love, support, and understanding. I acted as Lili throughout the performance. After Guy died, Lili had to become a prostitute who invited night guests over the house, while hiding her job to son, Little Guy, in order to protect his innocence and immaturity. Furthermore Lili always comforted Little Guy by saying that there is an angel, who is your father, find you during night to protect from the evil spirits, and Lili kept wanted Little Guy to be educated and learned to prevent his life becoming miserable like his father, and to pretend the poverty. All the comfort and lies represented the theme of love and motherhood. The conflict occurred where Lili get caught by Little Guy while Lili working as a night woman and dancing with the guest in the other part of room. Guy woke up on the middle of the night and got shocked as he saw Lili was having affair with other stranger. Little Guy gets mad and asked Lili for the truth, and Lili ended up telling him the facts that she is a night woman, and the money from this job maintains their life. After knowing all the truth, son finally understood and decided to accept it, he even appreciated Lili that she sacrificed herself to support family. The whole scenes perfectly showing their miserable life after Guy’s death, and the theme of love, support, and understanding occurring between two characters.

3. Personally I thought the change of Lili and Little Guy’s life, where their life becoming more miserable due to Guy’s death, should be more focused. So we showed Guy’s death really briefly at the beginning part by Lili screaming toward the Guy’s dead body, and more focused on the story occurring after the death. Since the Guy is not really significant character in our adaptation, two characters were enough to cover the scenes. Me, as Lily, kept referred Guy as an angel to indicate that Guy is not around us anymore and he is dead. I further keep emphasized about Little Guy being educated and getting supported to represent Lili’s dream which is Little Guy preventing the poverty and not going through the same life with his dead by being educated and getting better job in the future. In the original book, the story supposed to end with Little Guy being ignorant about her mom’s job. However, we thought it is important that Little Guy realizing the harsh reality and his povertiness despite of his young age. In order to show that Little Guy noticed her mom’s real job and her sacrificatin toward him, we revised the original scene and added a new scene where Little Guy is peeking through her mom’s night job during midnight. Furthermore, we put a dancing scene which Lili is dancing with a night guest to represent her job as a prostitute. In order to emphasize the romantic mood, we put relax jazzy song in the background. After Little Guy realizing all the truth, he got shocked and little upset to her mom about the fact that she has been hiding everything to him. But Little Guy realized his mom’s devotion and huge love toward him, and the story ended up him forgiving and appreciating to Lili.

4. -highlighted on expressing emotion

-voice tone change

-eye contact with partner

-using props and gestures to show Lili getting prepared to meet night guest

-body movement (pointing Jacob while reading monologue)

-moving position on the stage (talk close to the audience in monologue or my-centered parts)

-Control lighting to create mood or environment of the scene

5. -Voice tone louder

-Good general expression

-Need more variety face expressions

-Nice eye contacts and performance with partner

6.-Should have been adding more songs to the background (such as LIli’s changing scene before the guest comes in or Liil’s monologue part)

7.-Learned about Haitian culture, historic background

-their extreme povertiness

-Different social treatment between men and women

-Learned life of the woman who has kid but not husband