Written Draft of Oral

1) intro 
       I chose this story because I feel that it allowed my partner and I a lot of freedom and potential to add on to the existing ideas. Throughout The Children of The Sea, I felt that there was tension between the two characters, since they are only writing to each other. This story had a rich emphasis on how the dialogue was formed between the two characters. Each character knew one another, but there was a strong and binding barrier between the two, that helped readers stay attached to their interactions. I loved how the characters seemed both conflicted, but sure of their choices. There was strong imagery throughout this story created by the words of the characters. This story was lively, but tedious, revolving around separation. The Children of The Sea is imaginative and dream-like. It is written with a whimsical air, while also highlighting a vivid and poetic vision of hurt and suffrage. The story moves quickly, with transitions between characters, but the details and style in which it is written levels out the active story with a meticulous fix on expression and phraseology. 

2) vision 
      I wanted to break the barrier between the two characters, and allow the audience a sense of resolution to the many unanswered questions posed throughout the story. My partner and I chose to add on new ending to the story to create a new realm of life for the characters, and allow them to bring their written imagery to life. I wanted to keep the highlighted themes alive, such as chaos/suffering, desire to escape and everlasting love. With my ending, I also wanted to create new themes, such as inevitable death, greed, acceptance/rebirth and reunion. I wanted to keep the characters with the same personalities and opinions about their challenges, while shedding light on what could happen if the story went deeper. I wanted the whimsical tone of the author's writing to encapsulate my story, which caused for the creation of a very striking way for the characters to meet. With the amount of style and symbolism throughout the original story, I felt that there was no other way for the characters break the crux of their story and meet unless it was in a profound and unusual way. 

3) literary features 
       I wanted to shed light on the back-and-forth dialogue between the characters, and put it to action in real time. I asked myself: how would the characters really react to each other in person? Do they feel the same way about all the same things? What if they disagreed? It was tough to really dissect each character, and decide who really thought what. In my eyes, they could both be heroes, but each needed a unique niche that was holding them back. We struggled to come up with a prominent climax for our scene, since the story left us with so many options. I felt as if the author created the allusion that both the characters were in complete agreeable with one another, and were on the same page, and it took me awhile to really grasp that they were not reading each other's letters. Once I realized that they were not responding to each other, but to themselves in their writing, I knew there needed to be a conflict between them. Since the author allowed them to balance on their own, when I had the two characters met for the first time, I wanted the status they felt between one another, as well as their original thoughts about each other to be turned on their heads. 

4) what you specifically did in your performance to achieve that -- you can talk about staging and relationship with your scene partner a bit but you must reflect A LOT on your specific acting choices, techniques
       My partner and I performed in a black box theatre, and used props and lighting to help us deliver our script. In my performance I made sure to raise and lower my voice to show my emotional state and growing anger throughout the scene. My body language changed from comfortable to tense throughout the scene, since my character goes through many changes in his emotional state. I tried to make my body into harder angles facing my partner so it seemed like I was frustrated with her specifically. I would turn out when I was showing frustration towards myself. Eye contact was crucial throughout our performance because it showed what the characters were thinking regardless to whether they said their emotions or thoughts. I looked out past my partner if I was thinking about my past or future, and I would look to the ground or the opposite side of my partner if I was discussing my own actions or faults. This helped to give a bigger impact when I was facing and looking at my partner, since she could then use my actions to give a starting point for her counter-actions/lines. 

5) what was successful/what you could have done differently
         I feel that my partner and I could have shown a deeper-rooted reason behind our character's actions. I feel that we portrayed our script well on stage, but we could have gone deeper into our idea and process of writing to create a more established and matured idea. I did not feel that we gave our bigger and more dense idea justice, since we did not have enough time to fully understand the new world we created for our characters, causing their dialogue to be based on their older, and more surfaced thoughts and opinions.