Staging proposal

Since My Love My Love has already been adapted into a musical, I would want my version of the story to be unique and interpretive to the authors ideas. It is important to respect the main ideals and goals throughout the story, but my version would showcase metaphors and keep the audience invested with an opportunity to have things left to the imagination. I appreciate the whimsical aspect of the story and how it hones in on how the gods affect the lives of who believe in them. I believe that there are many important details in the story that can be looked over if not carefully analyzed. I would want to adapt a more vague, creative performance that brings to light those details, and leaves room for many questions or ideas from the audience that I personally had while reading the book.

My performance would be held in a black box theatre and would have a more interpretive feeling, as there would be a nararator. None of the characters would speak, except maybe Desiree. The narorator would be very detailed, but allow the characters to explain most of the more vague ideas throughout the story. There would be a lot of dancing and the characters would have to be over the top with their facial expressions and movements since they are not speaking. Lights and props will set the stage for where the characters are during each scene, and backdrops will change quickly throughout the show. Colors in costuming will differentiate between characters. Peasants will be in certain clothing and rich people will be in another. At first I was hoping for everyone except Desiree would be wearing a mask, but I feel that it would be too difficult to show emotion. I feel that the route of the performance could go either way though. If everyone was wearing a a mask though, I feel like it would help to emphasize how alone Desiree really is throughout the story. Either way there would still be a narrorator and a lot of strong and large movements.

The gods in my performance would be represented by large cape-like pieces of fabric. They would be attached to string and move accordingly throughout the different scenes. It would take a lot of technologically savvy materials and people to bring this idea to life. Each fabric would be a different color to represent each god. In the scenes when Papa Ge is depicted as "dripping in blood,"  there will be blood splatter on the dark colored fabric, and if there was a way to achieve the look of blood coming off of the fabric I would love that as well. I feel that if the characters are not speaking the performance has to be extremely detailed in all other aspects. Movements have to be big, lights need to be complicated, and props need to be used efficiently and vastly.