How Our Scenes are Going

Our group’s main analysis point is the contrast between the rich and poor on the island. Also, based on what our group felt about the story, we have been trying to depict the rich as an antagonist who are just taking advantage of the poor, and the poor as a protagonist who are used by the rich. So far, we have worked pretty much and I think the whole plot and settings are pretty solid. We set the ending as a tragic so that we can show that the tyranny of the rich ruined the whole poor’s happy and pure life. Furthermore, we had many great ideas such as lighting, which effectively shows the uncrossable boundary between the rich and poor, and instrument playing, which somehow shows their different educational background and living standards (also our group’s talent). 

Our group has four people, which will require longer and more complete output, so it would be harder to practice and communicate than a group with fewer people. Fortunately, after we did the script reading, we found that at least the length of the scene will not be a problem since we could run for about 20 minutes which is the exact length IB ideally requires. Nonetheless, the hardship we faced is the memorization of lines and blocking. Memorizing them is essential for actors as it helps a lot to express their emotion. For us, it is even more important because the rich and poor will have completely different emotions as well as situations. For example, while Desiree and Tonton (the poor side) were suffering from a drought and hunger, Daniel and Gabriel were enjoying classical music, sitting down and discussing Daniel’s engagement. Also, what Desiree felt to Daniel was actually not the same as what Daniel felt to Desiree. However, ironically, even though our group created a whole script and we realize that it is important to memorize them, it is still so hard to absorb completely. 

Unfortunately, I could not get to watch my classmates’ scenes, so I could not get to compare our and their scenes. In my opinion, as we are using lighting for all of our scenes, we need to work on going in and going out. When we were rehearsing our scenes roughly at the black box, I felt a total confusion. Every single member did not come in and go out at a right moment; for instance, Ben did not go to the backstage after his narration was done, so we could see him standing there when we should not be able to see him. If it happened in a real take, it would have been really awkward. However, I believe because all four members of our group are in parts of drama or music program (or both), our group would have a better understanding about the story and thus, eventually make this assessment perfect.

Overall, I think our scenes are clearly showing our main theme despite our not perfect acting skill. We tried to make it as obvious as possible, so audiences can grasp what is going on even if they do not listen to us. We still have some room to fill up. It might be a lot of work but it will be one more great footstep as a learner and an actor.