This was another performance where I had to memorize a selection and recite it in class. Afterwards I had to write a reflection paper. However, this time it was poetry, not a short story. "Destruction" by Joanne KygerFirst of all do you remember the way a bear goes through a cabin when nobody is home? He goes through the front door. I mean he really goes through it. Then he takes the cupboard off the wall and eats a can of lard. He eats all the apples, limes, dates, bottled decaffeinated coffee, and 35 pounds of granola. The asparagus soup cans fall to the floor. Yum! He chomps up Norwegian crackers stashed for the winter. And the bouillon, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic, onions, potatoes. He rips the Green Tara poster from the wall. Tries the Coleman Mustard. Spills the ink, tracks in the flour. Goes up stairs and takes a shit. Rips open the water bed, eats the incense and drinks the perfume. Knocks over the Japanese tansu and Persian miniature of a man on horseback watching a woman bathing. Knocks Shelter, Whole Earth Catalogue, Planet Drum, Northern Mists, Truck Tracks, and Woman’s Sports into the oozing water bed mess. He goes downstairs and out the back wall. He keeps on going for a long way and finds a good cave to sleep it all off. Luckily, he ate the whole medicine cabinet, including stash of LSD, peyote, Psilocybin, Benzedrine, Valium, and aspirin. Reflection Paper When asked to choose a poem to perform, I chose Destruction by Joanne Kyger. This decision was made after fruitless attempts to find a poem that fit the time limit of 70 to 90 seconds. When I stumbled upon this one, I was caught by its amusing introduction and ironic ending. The poem depicts the story of a bear who breaks into a cabin, eats all of the owner’s food, and destroys some of the owner’s possessions. The poem would be considered dramatic due to it’s clear description of an event, as well as its rhythmic flow of lists and actions. I found that this dramatic poem was written in present time, thanks to the way the narrator used present tense words such as ‘eats,’ ‘knocks,’ and ‘goes.’ There are various uses of imagery and figurative language used throughout the piece as well, drawing the picture of a giant bear trudging through a stranger’s cabin.
Many uses of imagery were visual, since the idea of a bear destroying a house is typically a visual event. Kyger draws us a picture by telling us that the bear really goes through the front door, as well as other events such as soup cans falling to the floor and the bear eating a can of lard. She also gave us tactile imagery when she wrote, “spills the ink, tracks in the flour.” When reading those words, I could feel the puffs of flour tickling my nose and the wet slime of ink running through my fingers, as if I tried to catch the ink bottle myself. Kyger also gave us a whiff of olfactory imagery when she claims that the bear “drinks the perfume.” When I think of perfume I instantly think of the worst smelling perfume I have ever smelled. There is also many uses of figurative language as well. Kyger uses allusion and personification when she says that the bear knocks over a “Japanese tansu and Persian miniature of a man on horseback watching a woman bathing.” There is a dash of ambiguity at the end where she says that the bear found “a good cave to sleep it all off,” since he ate the whole medicine cabinet. I could only assume a number of reasons for this statement. The bear could literally be sleeping it all off, or he could go off and die of an overdose of drugs. We will never know. However, I feel like this entire poem is an example of ambiguity. This ambiguity is another reason why I chose this piece. When I first read this piece, I felt like it was one big joke. It was as if the narrator was telling a funny story about a fictional event. However, as I continued to repeat it to myself, I began to feel like it was more of a sarcastic truth than humorous fiction. I began to wonder if this actually happened to Kyger, except maybe the bear was a husband or significant other rather than an actual bear. This wonder became my inspiration for this piece. I began to rehearse it as if I was trying to be sarcastic, but I continued to find myself going between sarcastic and funny, so I made up my mind and decided to perform it as if it was a fictional story rather than myself making fun of an actual event. My peer, Hannah Petersen, helped me by listening to it and helping me determine my tone. When I began memorizing my piece, I started from the end and worked my way up, since I noticed that all of the lists in this poem would prove to be a challenge. I looked up all the definitions to the medicines I couldn’t pronounce and learned that list first. When I typed up the poem, I inserted the pronunciations as well right after the word so I could practice pronouncing it correctly. Then I worked up from there. In class I spent most of my rehearsal time practicing just being able to say all of those medicines fluently. My peer helped me by checking my progress every now and then. As I got towards the end of my memorization, I realized that I was struggling with the middle portion of the piece. I could give a confident beginning and a confident end, but I continued to struggle with the middle. I tried to use physical queues to help me out, such as reaching out for the “Green Tara poster” and pointing towards the ceiling to indicate that the bear went upstairs to “take a shit.” However, I even forgot those queues when I performed it for my final, which killed me inside. I rehearsed that section over and over again to try and make sure I had those queues down. Between my final performance and preliminary performance, I made a variety of changes to the piece. For starters, I finally memorized the piece. Instead of using actual props, I pretended to interact with various objects to help me remember them, such as ripping open the water bed and eating imaginary incense and drinking imaginary perfume. I chose to look off into the distance to indicate the bear’s travel after the cabin disaster. Also considering the amount of lists in this poem, I chose to count the objects of each list in order to remember them all. I kept count of how many were in each list so I was literally counting them as I recited them. I also chose to add more a humorous tone to my voice as I went along, indicating that this destruction was funny rather than tragic. I continued to work on all the pronunciations of words, especially that of bouillon, even though the pronunciation I found claimed it to be said as “boo-l-yon.” After listening to a recording of the word on YouTube, I even found that my pronunciation for Psilocybin was off, too. The definition I typed on my paper was “sil-uh-nahy-tah” instead of “sil-a-sy-bin.” Overall, I felt that I improved greatly between the two performances. In the end, however, I was not happy with my final performance. I was totally thrown off when I began forgetting words and gestures, since that is what made the piece flow. With every mistake I made, I yelled at myself, thinking, “Nope, you weren’t supposed to do that,” especially when I muttered words like “shoot,” and “no, not asparagus.” I felt like the ending of the poem was a foothold that I could support myself on, since I knew it so well. Some peers pointed out that I became more confident once I got there, and that was because I knew it so well. It could have gone better, but I think I walked with with more confidence than I should have, considering how well my last performance went. The lesson I learned from this performance was that I need to calm down and work on the poem with more caution and less confidence with how easy the poem seemed to be. With a little bit more caution and security, I think I would have been able to perform Joanne Kyger’s poem better than I had.
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For this assignment, we had to go watch a production of Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, Steven Satar, and Duncan Sheik. The performance was put on by the Central Michigan University Theatre. After watching the play, we had to point out five poetic moments we found in the play. As humans, we interpret life as we please. Some of us even express our interpretations in the form of novels or plays. This can be said for Frank Wedekind, Steven Sater, and Duncan Sheik, who all contributed to the musical, Spring Awakening. The story’s explication of puberty and discovering one’s role in a community was originally written by Wedekind in 1891, then published as a book and musical by Sater and Sheik in 2006. The play was originally written to present Wedekind’s interpretation, then edited to show Satar and Shiek’s interpretation. However, when viewing the performance, the audience can create their own interpretations as well.
When I watched Spring Awakening, I was caught by the opening scene. I could feel Wendla’s broken spirit when her mother refused to tell her about how babies were made. This scene made me assume that parents never talked to their children about sex back in the nineteenth century. Olivia Clayton’s presentation of Wendla’s mother persuaded me to conclude that it was only a social norm. With her authoritative voice and nervous movements, this was the only excuse I could come up with in her defense. There didn’t seem to be a hidden plot as to why Wendla couldn’t know about sex. If Wendla did find out what sex was, the play would have a completely different ending. The next scene that stuck out was when the audience first meets Melchior, Moritz, and the rest of the school boys. First of all, this scene was like walking into the boy's locker room. The scene showed me something completely out of my comfort range. However, I saw it as poetic because it showed the different worlds within their lives. There was the world that was expected of the boys when their teacher yelled at them, and then the world that was all their own; the world full of wet dreams and big breasts. I was taken aback by how the boys spoke when they were not in the eyes of their teacher. It certainly opened my eyes to see boys of such standards speak their minds. As I watched on, I felt that Moritz was a poetic moment all by himself. He was innocent and lost. He had no one to guide him or anyone for him to confide in. Melchior tried, but he didn’t really help Moritz. In a way, Melchior even led him astray in some aspect. Yes, Melchior did teach Moritz about sex and why he was having dreams about his piano teacher, but I feel like Moritz’s struggle was more than that. Moritz wanted someone to help him figure out who he was, not someone to help him find what he wanted. He was struggling to discover how he could contribute to society without everyone being so cross with him. It didn’t help that Moritz struggled academically. With the added stress of his body maturing sexually, he was completely lost. I firmly believe that no one truly understood Moritz, so no one could help him. Since no one could help him, he decided he would help himself by committing suicide. I found that the burial of Moritz was also poetic in its own, twisted way. All of the people who attended Moritz’s funeral loved Moritz and they were there to show their love. However, did they really love him? I feel that their attendance at the burial represented their ignorance of Moritz. Analyzing their interactions with him throughout the play, all the characters who attended the funeral didn’t really know Moritz personally except for Melchior, but even then Melchior knew little of Moritz’s overall struggle. The burial was poetic because they were all mourning someone they didn’t bother to know. The sadness they showed only covered their acquaintanceship with Moritz, except for his father. If I were Moritz, I would have been outraged to see my father at that funeral. Moritz’s father was cruel when Moritz was alive, so why should he show his love after he died? Moritz’s father was a hypocrite and I feel Moritz would have felt betrayed to see him crying over his grave. Another hypocrite I noticed was Melchior’s mother. I was ended up being disappointed in her. She was the only character I saw that had any common sense during the play. She was so firm in her belief that Melchior shouldn’t be sent to a reformatory school. I was proud of her. However, when her husband so rudely presented her with the reasons why, such as Melchior’s papers and sex with Wendla, I was crushed when she agreed to send him away. Her surrender to her husband’s proposal showed me that in the society they lived in, women never truly got to grow up. She was as naive as the teenage girls. I believe she was a hypocrite for giving up on her son so quickly just so she wouldn’t upset her husband. However, this is all my opinion. Other people may interpret this play differently than I did. Maybe people thought that Moritz was just a stupid, horny twit or that Melchior did help Moritz. No matter what anyone thinks, plays are enjoyed based on the viewer’s interpretation, not by the strict meanings meant by the authors. If the reader had to follow the author’s opinion, where would be the fun in life? Definitely not after the show among the groups of students grumbling about how demented Frank Wedekind was, that’s for sure. For this paper, I also had to prepare/memorize a selection of a story to perform in class. First will be the selection I recited, then after that will be the paper. "Doby's Gone" by Ann Petry “Can we play, too?” She asked finally. A boy with a freckled face and short stiff red hair looked up at her and frowned. He didn’t answer but kept ostentatiously patting at a little mound of gravel. Sue walked a little closer, holding Doby tightly by the hand. They boy ignored her. A little girl in a blue and white checked dress stuck her tongue out. “Your legs are black,” she said suddenly. And then when the others looked up she added, “Why, look, she’s black all over. She’s black all over.” Sue retreated a step away from the building. The children got up and followed her. She took another backwards step and they took two steps forward. The little girl who had stuck her tongue out began a chant, “Look, look. Her legs are black. Her legs are black.” The children were all saying it. They formed a ring around her and they were dancing up and down and screaming. “Her legs are black. Her legs are black.” She stood in the middle of the circle completely bewildered. She wanted to go home where it was safe and quiet and where her mother would hold her tight in her arms. She pulled Doby nearer to her. What did they mean her legs were black? Of course they were. Not black but dark brown. Just like these children were white some other children were dark like her. Her mother said so. But her mother hadn’t said anyone would make her feel back about being a different color. She didn’t know what to do; so she just stood there watching them come closer and closer to her-their faces red with excitement, their voices hoarse with yelling. Then the school bell rang. Reflection Paper Prior to this assignment, I had only read one story out of Points of View, edited by James Moffett and Kenneth R. McElheny. That story was ‘The Suicides of Private Greaves,’ by James Moffett. I knew right away I did not want to perform a selection from that particular story because it was from a third person omniscient point of view, which made the plot difficult to comprehend if you’re first reading it from the middle of the story. Instead, I read a variety of other selections to test the waters. I read ‘Inez,’ by Merle Hodge, ‘Scales,’ by Louise Erdrich, and ‘Doby’s Gone,’ by Ann Petry. Out of those three stories, ‘Doby’s Gone’ stood out to me the most. The story was an easy read, though it was extremely clever with the setup and introduction to its characters. In the end, I decided to pick an excerpt from ‘Doby’s Gone.’
I found my selection from ‘Doby’s Gone,’ just by browsing the story. I skimmed over it after reading it and every now and then I would try and find a good starting point and see if it could go somewhere within the 60 to 90 second time frame we were given. Ironically, while I was looking for a starting point, I found my ending point first. When I looked on page 400 of Points of View, I noticed that the first sentence of the first paragraph on that page would make a great and sensible cliffhanger to my selection. The sentence was, “Then the school bell rang.” I looked back at the events that occurred before that line and fell in love with how the author set up this section. Ann Petry sends the white children to bully Sue, causing tension and confusion to emit from Sue to the reader. Then, when Petry wrote, “Then the school bell rang,” there was a huge sense of relief that not only overcame Sue, but me as well when I read it. I loved it. That’s how I came upon choosing Sue’s first encounter with children as my selection for this assignment. When practicing for my preliminary performance, I immediately typed up and printed my selection from the book when I had the chance. After that, I taped it to the back of my TAI 170 folder and highlighted the selection into 3 sections. The first ten sentences were highlighted in yellow to indicate the first section I should memorize. The next ten sentences were highlighted in blue, and the final eleven sentences were highlighted in pink. First I reread the entire selection outloud to get a feel for the flow of the piece. During this activity I began making vocal choices with my words. At the time, they were very subtle voice choices that were either changed or exaggerated between the preliminary and final performances. By the preliminary performance, I had most of the first section memorized, but had not yet touched on the other two sections. While performing the preliminary performance, I was satisfied with my performance from my point of view. However, during our in-class discussion, I did take note of my performance’s weaknesses, as pointed out by my classmates. I made it my goal to improve upon my weaknesses between then and the final performance. I will admit, I resented signing up for Monday, October 9th. I only signed up because I knew no one else was going to step up till someone else did. I had originally desired to sign up for Wednesday because that would give me a chance to polish my performance before the due date. I didn’t want to sign up for Monday because I was going to go home over the weekend and I knew I would forget or procrastinate during my time home. I was right. Not only did I procrastinate my work over the weekend, but I also fell ill over the weekend. So my final preparations and memorizations happened Sunday night after I came back to Mount Pleasant. When in my dorm room, all of my roommates were working on homework, so I memorized my selection by continually writing it down on notebook paper. While practicing for my final performance in a practice room in the Herrig Hall basement, I made sure to add more movements to my performance. I chose to use more movements to help me remember the lines and attitudes I needed for that portion of the story. I also worked on changing my voices for the different characters to differentiate between Sue and the “little girl who had stuck her tongue out.” I knew the little girl needed more of a snarky tone that wasn’t there the first time I performed, and I quickly came up with the idea of having that snarky tone develop over her dialogue. When she first speaks, I decided to convey her line as if it surprised her to see that Sue’s legs were black. That choice allowed me to think about the upcoming lines with a beginning pause. After that, her dialogue quickly grew into the snarky, teasing tone a child tends to use. Quickly other movements and vocal choices fell into place, such as jumping when the children are all chanting, “her legs are black,” and moving forwards and backwards according to Sue’s movements. All of my movement choices were chosen to help me remember what to say. On Monday, I admit, I was nervous. I didn’t look at my selection at all that day. That morning my 8am class had been cancelled, so instead of possibly practicing I went back to bed. After the fact I debated on whether or not that was a wise decision since I had only fully memorize the piece the night before. However, by this point, it was too late. As I walked into Moore Hall Room 132, I decided that I would volunteer first and get it out of the way. When I entered, I felt I had a decent handle on the piece and I didn’t want to lose that. I knew that if I sat there and watched other people, I would forget everything I had practiced and my performance would have fallen apart. That is what happened when I waited to perform my first performance, which was the assignment of bringing in an object and explaining how it describes myself. So when I stood to perform, I knew there was no turning back. The first thing I did was take a deep breath. Then I tried to introduce myself, but continually stumbled over the word, ‘performing.’ I felt embarrassed, but started again. As I began to recite my selection, I could feel myself begin to shake. I tried to go slow enough so my brain could comprehend what I was saying, but I think I went a little too slow for my brain, causing myself to forget a line. It was a battle between me and my lines. I knew the lines, I knew I did, but as each line approached, I felt my confidence fading in and out. I held on strongly to the physical movements I added to remember my lines. When I forgot the line, “Her mother said so,” I silently yelled at myself. I had associated that sentence with the movement of putting both hands on my hips. How could I have forgotten that? That’s when I could feel my shaking become worse. I was fighting to make sure my shakiness wasn’t skewing with my words. I was all but relieved when I finished and sat down. I could still feel myself shake after I sat down. I think the shaking subsided by the time Nick Mills performed. I was not happy with my performance and couldn’t imagine what my performance looked like in comparison to everyone else. With this mindset I found the feedback from the class really surprising. This only proves that I should have more confidence in myself and I should plan out my practicing more in order to solidify my confidence. On September 6th, 2017, the Central Michigan University Theatre showed the premiere of the play Love/Sick, written by John Cariani. Love/Sick is a series of sketches displaying different events of love sickness during a single Friday night. In this play we are introduced to many different couples. Some of them are trying to find true love, while others are discovering that they have been misguided by the sensation that is love. Each character illustrates their emotions through body language and variations in speech. Out of all the characters, five of them stood out among the rest.
The first character that caught my attention was the Singing Telegram Man, played by Zach Whitt. At the beginning of Scene Two, titled, ‘The Singing Telegram Man,’ Whitt’s character was very enthusiastic about his job. He was the Singing Telegram Man, as seen in many television shows and plays. His speech was upbeat and confident. Though he was interrupted many times by Maya Voorhorst’s character, Louise Overbee, he still kept a positive attitude about him. He stood at the door with his head held high, even though he knew what was going to happen to poor Louise Overbee. Whitt’s acting was important because it didn’t give the audience any clues as to what was going to happen next. To the audience, he was just a singing telegram. This made the transition into the big reveal more effective towards the mood of the scene. The Singing Telegram Man was only there to do his job, but once Overbee demanded that he sing, the character sang a different tune. His positivity faded into a fit of nerves and regret. He lied, avoided eye contact, and was reluctant to do anything. His voice showed less confidence and his character seemed to stutter a little when lying. Whitt's character in this scene stood out to me because his acting drove me down a false path. I was predicting that he could not actually sing and Overbee would fall in love with the Singing Telegram Man. He misguided me, which caused the awful message to make a huge impact on me. Another character who stood out to me was Ben. Ben, played by Dakota King, appears in the third scene of the play, titled, ‘What?!?’ In this scene, King portrays Ben as a nervous wreck who is trying to speed up his relationship with a man he loves. King shows Ben’s feelings by talking fast, avoiding eye contact, and constantly moving about the stage. He spoke loudly, even though his words went in one ear and out the other due to their excessive speed. The purpose of this performance was to give Andy, portrayed by Jack Valutis, a reason to reveal his secret. Valutis’s character has a condition where his body shuts down when exposed to stressful situations. Thanks to King’s character, the audience finds out about this condition when Andy can't focus on Ben’s lips because Ben is constantly moving. King’s character stood out to me because it was an extreme performance. It made the situation comical rather than serious. It kept the audience engaged because they were trying to figure out what King was saying. Later on we were introduced to Keith and Celia, a betrothed couple who were getting cold feet. These two characters were portrayed by Zach Whitt and Calyn Liberati. In the beginning, Whitt’s character was nervously awaiting his bride from inside their house bathroom. Whitt expresses Keith’s nerves by bouncing a leg and letting his mouth run loose when Liberati’s character knocks on the door. He begins to babble about old wedding superstitions and strange statistics, making Celia think that Keith doesn’t want to get married. Liberati shows Celia’s concern through a stern, strong voice and stopping Whitt when he isn’t able to stop his mouth from talking. Whitt and Liberati made this scene memorable because of their quick points to judge each other, as well as the different speeds in which they spoke. Liberati used her pauses to emphasize the fact that Keith and Celia didn’t want to get married. By the end they both changed their tone, making it a moving and memorable scene. The last character who made an impact on my experience was Jill, who was portrayed by Calyn Liberati as well. In the scene, ‘Forgot,’ Jill has a serious conversation with her husband, Kevin, who is portrayed by Dakota King. The fact of the issue is that the couple never had a baby. Jill claims that they discussed having a child and planned on it, but never got around to conceiving a child. Liberati shows Jill’s frustrations through clever clues and a range of attitudes, trying to get through to Kevin, but only to have to tell him straight that they forgot to have a baby. Liberati’s performance in the scene stood out to me because she harnessed the motherly instinct that many women have and incorporated it into her performance. Jill’s desperation for a child came through to Kevin thanks to Liberati’s strong voice, rigid and instinctive movements, and her portrayal of depression, as shown in her refusal to eat the cake and the recollections of Jill's friends and their children. If I were in Jill’s shoes, I would have felt the same way. Liberati made this character not only memorable, but relatable. In the end, all of the actors and actresses from the Central Michigan University Theatre put on a spectacular performance. From singing telegrams to forgotten children, this will certainly be a play I will not forget. For this, I have to thank the performers. Without their wild attitudes, various talking speeds, and spoken actions, this play would not have been successful. |
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