Realistic VS. Imaginary

Hello, I’m Dr. Goodman, and I am enjoying to be a part of this great sad story which is named Total Nuts for now. This story is our short play vision of My Love My Love, and our group mainly focus on the fight between Ti Moune’s imaginary world and realistic world. So far we have been working on the lines and some of the staging, but the biggest problem is timing. Then we also need to be more familiar about our blocking because we want to show the relationships between characters, but our pacing is giving us a hard time to show them clearly.

I am Dr. Goodman who represents Dinel in the novel and Goodman is the English meaning of Beauxhomme. Our story is based on a hospital and Ti Moune lost her memories, and she thinks that we are meant to be together. However the truth is that I'm just her doctor and I don't know her at all. I consider this character who is very responsible to his job and patients, so he is being very nice and caring to Ti Moune which cause the misunderstanding between them. I should also react very uncomfortable when Ti Moune does something to show her love to me such as touching my face and holding my hands. We also used the character Andrea in the story who is Dr. Goodman’s fiancée, and they talk about their wedding in front of Ti Moune at the end of the story. 

Because one of our classmate was sick one day, we don't have all of our whole staging and blocking. We need to focus on more blocking because the switching between imagination and real world is very hard to show it clearly with only lights changing. We also can make it clear by staging differently and characters moving differently. More importantly is the character of God because we only have one character who plays four gods. To be honest, it is a extremely difficult to distinguish four different characters in a short time, and it also require the actor to change from different characters in seconds and mutipul times in the roll. Even though I am not playing this role, we still need to work together to help this character to control the pace and being able let the audience understand it well. We are also working on making small changes on scripts, so we could not fully focus on our characters, and it caused that we still need to work on more characters’ building in order to represent each character better and more comprehensive.

I am very excited about this project because this is our own story, so we are able to add more ideas in it and make it more creative. However, we are having a hard time to stage and block our scene, but the idea of four gods in one character and Ti Moune struggling between imaginary and real world are so interesting. And base on this idea we have created so many details between each character to make it happen. I am looking forward to finish our staging and blocking and more important to finish building the character.

Scene Plot

My Love My Love Totally Nuts

• Daniel/Doctor Beauxhomme(Goodman) introduces Ti Moune and car accident→ monologue
• Dr B talks to Ti Moune who thinks that she saved him from the car accident-tries to communicate normally stays calm but eventually gives up and leaves
• As Ti Moune watches Dr B exit, Gods enter and sit on chair next to her→ Ti Moune startled and confused-Gods introduce themselves→ Dr B start entering Gods give the comb
• Dr G Talks to Ti Moune again last her explain her imaginary story understanding at first then impatien leaves
• Ti Moune is confused unsure, Gods appear and crazy God monologue happens, Ti Moune gets hysterical throws the comb God Exit (Bryn suuuupeeeer quick costume change)
• Brief moment of Ti Moune alone all weird
• Dr G enters bringing dinner Andrea enters-cover eyes-spin Dr G ends up with back to Ti Moune Dr G +A Ti Moune tries to get attention from Dr G→ a Dr G +A add it their love want to stay together forever→ Ti Moune breakdrown first scream at Dr G and then at Andrea Dr G gets Andrea out because he is afraid of the crazy person → closes door on her→ Ti Moune depressed (death) they leave and don’t care

THE END

Scene Proposal

Our group decided to stage the novel  My Love, My Love in an insane asylum. We based this idea on Ti Moune’s irrational obsession with Daniel. In our scene, Ti Moune gets into a car accident and loses her memory. She is sent to an insane asylum where she meets Dr. Goodman. Ti Moune imagines the story of her love to Dr. Goodman, who represents Daniel, and tries everything she can to convince him that they are meant to be together. Dr. Goodman tries to resist her advances, yet be a good doctor towards his patient. Ti Moune is helped by her imaginary friend, who is another patient with multible personality disorder. This character will represent the four Gods. When Dr. Goodman’s girlfriend, Andrea, appears unexpectedly, Ti Moune is devestated. She tries to break the two apart but fails, and they leave her heartbroken in her room.

In this scene, Bryn will play the Gods and Andrea, who only appears briefly during the end, Wiebke will play Ti Moune and John will play Dr. Goodman. In our scene we included many small similarities to the book.  Some similarities include a comb, a car accident, the relationship between sane and insane (the rich and the poor), the four Gods, and our biggest theme, Ti Moune’s obsession with Daniel/Dr. Goodman.  While these are similarities, we incorperated them in slighty different ways that still hold true to the storyline of the book. In the our scene, we created an ending that mimicks the novel.  In the novel, Daniel marries Andrea and throws Ti Moune out of the hotel- an action that will ultimately result in her death.  Similarly, our scene ends with Dr. Goodman and Andrea leaving together from Ti Moune’s room.  Therefore, Ti Moune, in both scenarios is “on the other side of the fence.” While in the book she cannot reenter, in our scene, she cannot run after them.  

Blog 13

I want to say that this ending is a super tragic, but it is also realistic. This ending is not like most other love story which gives a explaination or two endings. For example, Romeo and Juliet is also tragic but they still love each other and their death earns the peace, and the Little Memaried makes the girl be part of the nature. However, this book's ending really surprised me because it didn't say Tin Moune becomes a tree or Daniel still loves her which I think is the most realistic ending. "Picking up the corpse by an arm and a leg, he dumped it at the side of the road to await the garbage collectors." As we can se, Riches do not know Tin Moune anymore, and her dead body is finally thrown in the garbage. Even though, Daniel promised her that they will always be together, he still forget all those things and finally get married with the wight rich girl. This is how the real world looks like!

I think this book teaches us that we should not be too emotional and we shouldn't live in our own world. Tin Moune fall in love with Daniel in a extremely short time which makes me feel that she is too emotional. After Daniel was picked up by his father, Tin Moune started to think Daniel in her mind which made Daniel such a great person, but you can never know someone completely without spending so much time with them and talk with them. That's why I think Tin Mune is in love with Daniel in her mind not the Daniel in the real world. All those tragic are cause because Tin Moune over imagine in her head about those things. If she didn't think the car accident is her responsibility; if she didn't consider Daniel as her true love so fast; if she didn't leave the village and all her love and go to Daniel, I believe the story won't be like this. Thus, seeing things with only imagination and self perspective can cause huge misunderstanding and unreal dreams, so we should listen to others' advices and be real sometime! 

The Nutcracker

On Sunday we went to the nutcracker play which is a ballet show. This was the first ballet show I ever see, so I find a big difference but also similar things in the play which are connected with straight play and musical performance. The whole play is about a Christmas night, everyone is checking their gifts and one girl get a nutcracker. Then the nutcracker becomes real and started dancing . After everyone leaves, she got up and see Nutcracker is under the Chrismas tree, and this is the point she starts her dream world. The stage seeking change and different kinds of characters and different countrie’s dance start to go. The very end of the show is when the scene get back to the house and we see the girl is sleeping in the sofa.

I really like the way they set the stage and change the stage. Because they have a really big stage, so it's hard to change the setting in a short time, and they have to represent the dream and the realistic. However, they perfectly solved this problem with lights and props removing. For example, when she is going in her dream, all the house was moved away, and the lights go down. At the point when the Chrismas tree was turned around, she completely get into the dream world, and the lights goes up again. Another thing I noticed is the dress, even thought all the dresses looks similar, I looked carefully and I found out the dress who has solo dance has more color on it. It also helped me easily find where to focus on. My favorite dance in this show was when a man jump up and spouse and splits his leg in the air, and I believed it, just be so hard to do it.

Ballet show is also so different from other plays because there is no dialogue or singing which means I have to follow the story by seeing the dance and setting change. I do enjoyed this play, and all the dancers are so talented and hardworking. I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone! And I hope we will be not so crazy after we come back!

In class questions

1. Why do you think after Tin Moune get shoes and dress the guard let her in?

2. If you are Daniel's father what would you do when you see they are hanging out together, and you don't want that happen.

3. Why do you think Daniel lost his memory?

4. What do you think it means when Tin Moune is trying to hold all the papillon in the cage?

As free!!!

“She took only her imaginary cage filled with papillons, her dreams; this her held to her—her future”(Guy 80). I didn't like Tin Moune’s character so much until I saw this sentence because her courage and reactions are super strong. She didn't do much things against her parents except taking care of Dainel and not doing work, but since Daniel was taken away from her, she started to reacting so nervous and active. When I saw her leave the home with only her dreams, I truly felt the power of her character and the power of dreams and love! I couldn't say anything because I never went out alone with nothing; however, I can still image how lonely and hard for a sixteen years old girl. On my personal perspective, I saw Tin Moube as a sympol of independence and freedom. I know there are so many things involves in love, but independence and freedom are the main topic.

I can always feel Tin Moune doesn't have much freedom and independence, and she wants them so badly and she looks like an outstander in her own village. She is the only person goes to the brook where others are not allowed. Here I see a curious child who is trying to discover more and see more, but rules are limiting her abilities which make her break rules and always want to know more about new things which also explain the reason why she wants to take of Daniel. Because of her desire of new, she started take care of Daniel which is also a decision made on her own, so she is feeling, like finally I can be on my own and I can help others. Then she falls in love with Daniel, but it was too sudden. In my opinion she falls in love with him is not just about love, but also about more proving herself. “I'm not a child, Tonton Julian,” Désirée answered. “I'm sixteen years old—and strong. I have no fear.” (Guy 61). As we can see, she doesn't want Tonton to treat her as a baby anymore because she wants to make her own decisions which is finding her true love Daniel, and she also want Tonton to treat her as a adult who are free as the dreams and butterfly, so she proves herself by going to the big city and finding out the Daniel. With this emotion Tin Moune started her journey which she wishes; however, it won't be easy for her!

I truly like Tin Moune now because she is taking all the pain such as the shoes, couldn't understand the language and Daniel forget who she is which is making her evolving into a new life situation. I know she hopes the dream coming true, but I also understand how hard it is for her to accomplish it. I am looking forward to read more tomorrow. So far, she had shown me a strong character and a great dream. However, as she is showing all her dreams the cage of butterfly will be broken, and I hope she be as free as those dreams!

Quiz

In the musical version they take the elements of butterfly, Tin Moune’s wish of love and her difference between other villagers. These three elements have created Tin Moune’s character, and they also make it more clear on how she reacts and decides things in the following story. I consider that Butterfly represent the freedom and beautiful dreams she had, and Love is one of the thing she always wants which is also the reason she leave the village. Last the difference between her and others make her character more interesting and kind of sad in the story.

In the musical, there are so many places mention the word fly, and I consider it represent the butterfly. “Flying as free as bird” “And my fate in the air” these two lines from the musical directly tell me that she wants to fly and her fate is in the air which just like the butter fly. She wants to be free in the air, so she can control her own fate. In the book, butterfly show up in her imagination which just like the situation in the musical. “She took only her imaginary cage filled with papillons, her dreams; this she held to her—her future”(Guy 80). This sentence tells me that she sees her dreams and butterfly as her future which is so close the meaning of fate. 

And all her wishes and fate are about Dinel and Love. That's why in this musical there are so many things she thought to do with Dinel. “Your car will stop and I'll hop and off we’ll drive…..” This one is when she was imaging when she can be together with Dinel and they drive together, and I see it as a love wish. Also in the book, “I must go. Daniel Beauxhomme needs me.” she doesn't even talk with him much, but she knows or feels strongly that he needs her, and deep down I think that she needs him and she wants to be with him because she wants love. 

Last is the difference between her and others. “Happy to have what they have and stay where they are. They never even look up at the sound of a car!” I feel here is more like she is complaining about others because they never do things fun and new, and Tin Moune's always want to discover new things both in her imagination and real world which is so different from others. In the book, no one wants to touch or get to close to the car, but Tin Mounne does and she takes care of Daniel. Also, when others say “better we had left him at the side of the road to perish.” because they are afraid of that polices and rich people will be angry and punish them. However Tin Moune get to be more carefully to heal him and make him well. And the truth is that she saved his life because of her love to Daniel.