Reflection of Scene (Quiz)

I believe that Nadya, Sam and I did a good job of writing our script, however could have developed the scene and performance itself a lot more with time. I think that we had a great idea. The concept of the characters meeting and navigating insecurities and conflict was intriguing and challenging. I found that by doing so, we had to think more about the characters and their stories. We had to find common themes and similarities between the women. We explored gender roles, legacy, hope and hate all in one quick moment which I think was very special. As a group we found clever ways to introduce other characters (Lili) and look at Danticat in a more holistic way as a writer. By intertwining her stories we were able to go into the themes in more depth. I think that the strongest part of our scene was our dialogue handling confrontation. We did a good job of writing anger in an honest way. The character's lines were truthful however, we incorporated fear which we hadn't seen in the women in the book.

The problems I saw with our scene was that there were many ideas started, however most of them were left unfinished. I think there was too much unexplained that it became confusing. I hope that if we got more time to work on the piece we could find other moments to explain and develop. I would like to go back work on my acting specifically. I think that I could find more places to find variety in my acting. The whole scene seemed very monotone. I was annoyed and that was it. There is lot more anger, and fear in the woman which I hope I can potentially go back and highlight. I also think that the staging could be a lot more intimate and natural. Sitting in the corner was somewhat awkward. I think that finding better staging would explain the 'talking to myself' in a more clear way.

Lastly, I think there are a lot of things we could go through and explain in the scene. How did my character end up in NYC? How did the other women end up there? The characters have very interesting stories and unique backgrounds that I feel deserve more exploration prior to performance. I hope that if we do this activity again, I can find more ways to emphasize the insecurity in the woman and put more body language into the acting to show different layers of emotion. For example, I think digging deeper into my character's role as a prostitute would be interesting. I think that defining her as this in the scene and contrasting how she holds her body to the other women would be powerful. Another thing I want to add is the relationship between the women and their children  This is something I would want to talk about more. How the women would bring this up in conversation I am unsure of, however introducing their relationships with their children was our initial goal and we never got there. I want to them to discuss their wants for their children, and find common ground in their similar sacrifices.