My Love, My Doctor Oral Presentation First Draft

1. My Love, My Love or the Peasant Girl is a Caribbean retelling of the The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson.  The story involves many dualities; earth and water, love and death, and rich and poor.  The main storyline revolves around Daniel and his love for both Ti Moune and Andrea.  Ti Moune saved Daniel from the car crash and has fallen deeply in love with him.  In addition, she thinks he remembers her and loves her back.  Daniel does not remember her, but starts to fall in love with her gradually until Andrea returns from France.  Here, Daniel leaves Ti Moune for Andrea.  
1. add more background
1. depends on what comes up below

      → mention musical here

2. Our group chose to focus on the dualities of love and death and rich and poor.  We chose to recreate the fact that Daniel and Ti Moune are from different worlds.  Our adaptation transformed the setting into an insane asylum where Daniel is the doctor and Ti Moune is his patient.  This is supposed to represent the difference between rich and poor. The themes of love and death were more loosely translated into the idea Ti Moune has of saving Daniel from the car crash. In our scene, Ti Moune is in the car crash, but she thinks that Daniel was, like he was in the book.  The Gods were interpreted into another patient- an imaginary one in Ti Moune’s head- who has multiple personality disorder.  This aspect was inspired by the parts in the book where the Gods all speak through Papa Ge.  We chose to show that Daniel could not see the Gods because they are imaginary rather than showing that Daniel does not believe in them.  We did add a scene where the Gods seem to speak to Daniel as if they are manipulating him like a pawn.  It seems like they are interacting, but he does not see them.  This is the only part where the Gods, Ti Moune and Daniel are all in the scene.  However, they are all speaking separately with no interactions.  The final character is Andrea.  She only appears at the very end.  This suppose to represent that she just seemed to walk into Daniel’s life and took him.  We tended to lean closer to the musical here.  We made Andrea Daniel’s fiancee already. This added to the effect the marriage-or future marriage has on Ti Moune. Overall, we attempted to focus on Daniel and Ti Moune’s relationship.
1. add about Ti Moune’s obsession
2. add more about distinction of characters
3. add about Daniel’s slight fascination/temptation with Ti Moune
4. add about character name decisions
3. We attempted to make our staging simple.  The stage consists of a couch, a chair and a small table.  Daniel and Andrea enter from stage right and the Gods enter from stage left. Ti Moune is almost always on stage except for the very beginning and she enters during a blackout.
1. talk about blackouts
2. add about lighting and sound effects
3. scene change
4. discuss fight
4. I played the Gods and Andrea.  Andrea played a large role in our storyline, but as far as challenging myself as an actor, she was not very difficult.  Andrea only has a few lines.  My biggest struggle came from learning to portray the Gods the way I wanted to/imagined them.  The Gods are very different from each other.  Each has complex characteristics and then they were combined.  Apart from learning 4 characterizations, I also learned how to switch between the gods.  The gods have an interesting relationship amongst each other in the book and I was particularly interested in portraying this.  The Gods were supposed to come across as comedic characters.  Each God has lines that pertain to the others and they tend to bicker with each other.  I was attempting to create the illusion that they have known each other for a very long time- so almost like an old married couple.  I spent lots of time trying voices and movements that got my point across and were comedic without looking ridiculous.  While I did play a multiple personality, imaginary patient, I did not was to seem ridiculous and this was difficult due to the God's relationships with each other.  As I became more comfortable with my lines, I started to explore what I could do with the characters.  
1. Agwe- sort of a fatherly figure, he looks out for Ti Moune
2. Erzulie- ditzy, dramatic, all about love no matter what
3. Asaka- motherly figure, wants the best for everyone, wants everyone to “play nice”
4. Papa Ge- sarcastic, droll, wants Daniel dead, it is a solution that benefits him

5) talk about once I did video.

1. how well I portrayed the gods
2. was it successful?
3. did I manage to keep the gods straight in the video?

6) need to talk about 5 first

1. was our overall performance successful?
2. what improvements would I make?
3. last thoughts...

Quotes:

Book:

Musical: “Asaka, Mother of the Earth. Agwe, God of Water. Erzulie, Beautiful Goddess of Love and Papa Ge, Sly Demon of Death.”

Our Script: “I’m the only one who can make you well.” Pick God lines to talk about.