Written Draft or Oral

New York Day Women 

- Introduction of the novel + Understanding of the texts

   I adapt New York Day Women, one piece of the stories from the Krik Krak which was written by Edwidge Danticat. It tells a typical day of a “day woman” from her daughter Suzette’s view. Stood out from the other eight stories in the novel, it takes place in Brooklyn, New York. As Suzette follows her mother, all those memories that her mother has told her wandering in her mind. Many intriguing points from this story appeal to me. Start from a major theme — the mother-daughter relationships. It is very complex and subtle. I can feel her embarrassment as she sees her mother is thinking about buying her an African print dress, and at the same time her great concern when she worries about her mom’s blood pressure and wants to stop her mom from eating the frankfurter. It is not limited to only these two aspects, and the more about it is what I want to explore and show to the audience. In addition to this, another big theme that grabs my attention is the Haitian Immigrants. Even though the day woman migrates to New York in seeking for a better life for her family, meanwhile, she also strives to keep the Haitian identity and insists on doing something that is related to her memories in the past such as peeling the skin off poultry by herself or saving clothes for the relatives in Haiti. But this kind of sentiment for Haiti is absolutely not what Suzette could understand at first, which is also the reason that creates the gap between her and her mom. And the process of dissolving such gap, which was not directly showed in the text, is another thing I would like to explore more in my adaptation. 

- critical perspectives on the dramatic potential of the texts 

   Thus, inspired by these two themes, I start to create my adaptation from the New York Day Women. There are two stories included in it. One is extended from the day woman’s quote, which was put after the daughter’s complaint that her mother never went to any of her parent-teacher association meetings when she was in school, and it said that “I don't want to make you ashamed of this day woman. Shame is heavier than a hundred bags of salt.” The unresolved bitterness that the day woman attempts to hide and Suzette’s lack of understanding are just what I want to show and magnify to the audience. Therefore, scene I was set up at the parent-teacher conference in the school. Suzette is sitting there in silence. Her mind is filled with grievance, anger and hatred toward her mother but at the same time, the day woman is standing behind the door of the classroom and looking at her daughter secretly. By playing such great contrast, I would like to more vividly present the gap between the mother and daughter, which refers to one of the major theme that I have mentioned at the beginning, the mother-daughter relationship. Then, it comes to the transition part, which was not really mentioned in the original text. In order to create an opportunity to let Suzette be curious about what happened to the day woman in the past, I construct scene II, in which Suzette accidentally sees a letter from Haiti to her mom, and that is the first time for her to have a deep conversation with her mom. Despite these two stories, I also set up a pre-scene and an ending scene, in which the grown up daughter is braiding her mother’s hair. This was inspired from the epilogue of the book, in which braiding hair was kept mentioned by the author. Braiding hair is not only a kind of Haitian traditional culture. For the author, it is like the “ninety-nine women” she has written. For me, I think it symbolizes unity, the kind of unity that distant people like Suzette and her mother finally come together. So, I put the scene of braiding hair at both the beginning and the ending to portray a happy ending. 

- insights into the performance process experienced from page to stage 

  While turning the screenplay into the performance on the stage, we met various challenges. The first big one is the stage set. Because some scenes need a lot of props to set up such as the classroom in the scene I, it is really a time-consuming thing to move the props before each scene. Other than that, the major problem would be the span of age. Since the adaptation is performed like a flashback, there is a time span over ten years. In order to achieve that, we were thinking about using special effect makeup and the wig at first but there were all denied at last due to the time limit. And also, there is not enough time for too much costume change so we just strive to achieve that through our own tone, mood and modality. 

- critical evaluation of their particular role and contribution to this process of transformation or adaptation and realization 

  I play the daughter Suzette at two ages, one is about 15 year old and an older one in 35. When I play the Suzette at 15, the age is not a problem. Since my age is very closed to the character setting, I do not need to disguise myself. And what I need to focus is the monologue part. There is not any interaction between the two characters in this scene. Thus, I attempt to enrich the monologue by using some body language and variation in tone. Instead of like what I did in the first draft, just standing there at a fixed position, I add many elements to enrich my performance. For example, when I reach the emotional point, yelling toward the front that “and all these things which make me feel ashamed were given by her”, I throw my backpack to the ground, increase my volume and speed. However, as I noticed many times during the performance, the pacing is not appropriate: I went way too fast to ignore the clear pronunciation of some words. That is one thing that I am ashamed of. Then, the play goes on to the scene II. Different from scene I, many interactions were displayed. Not only presented in the scripts, I also add many physical contact into it. When my mom is telling me her difficult life in the past, I move my chair closed to her, hold her hand unconsciously, pat on her back and comfort her in a soft voice that “I can be back with you together”. That is really a touching moment at the stage. I can feel the barriers between me and my mom vanish. And then, I become the Suzette at 35 years old. I am wearing a turquoise dress, standing behind my mom and braiding her hair. There is not that much thing deliberately changed like my voice or clothes. All I would like to convey to the audience by this moment is just a sense of happy and tranquility. As I finish braiding the hair, my mom falls asleep, the scene ends. 

- conclusion

   Playing the character Suzette from the New York Day Women is really a memorable and meaningful experience. Although not everything came out as perfect as what we expect, the two big themes: the mother-daughter relationship and the Haitian immigrant were successfully portrayed through the adaptation and the two characters we build up. I hope the wall that last over ten years between Suzette and the day woman before being dissolved can bring people of constant and long moved.