A
daughter is sitting at the breakfast table, reading her book. Her father walks
into the room and sees how innocent and vulnerable she looks, sitting there and
unaware of her surroundings. He realizes that he may not be able to keep her
safe much longer, as she is growing up to be an independent young woman. She is
the oldest of his children, and her mother is estranged. He sits at the table
and prepares to fulfill his fatherly duties:
Father:
speaking slowly, hesitantly
“daughter, I want you to learn how to shoot a gun. It doesn’t need to be a
complex sports rifle, just… just learn how to pull the damn trigger without shooting yourself. I worried about you
when you played in the woods behind the house as a little girl because of what
kind of animals could bite you and what hole you could trip into. Now that
you’re older and going out with people I don’t know, I worry even more.
Father:
I worry about your tough guy boyfriends and the places they’re taking you to
without thinking about your safety first. When you find yourself thrown into
some pot-cocaine deal gone bad, you’ll need to be able to grab tough guy’s gun
and use it to protect yourself”
Daughter: protesting
“but my boyfriend isn’t a tough guy, daddy”
Father:
not distracted: “he thinks he is. They
all do. Now listen, this is how you drive a car with a stick-shift. It gets easier with practice, but even if you
don’t ever want to practice I want you to at least know how it works, and that
way… if you find yourself stranded in a parking lot with a dead boyfriend after
a drug deal goes bad and all you have is his supercharged sports car, you’ll at
least be able to make that car go and it’ll take you home to safety. “
Daughter: optimistically “or maybe he won’t be
dead. If he’s not, I can make the supercharged sports car go and I’ll take us
to a hospital and probably be able to save his life! ”
Father:
getting a little frustrated with
daughter’s optimism during this somber conversation “daughter, I want you
to always keep a $20 bill in your wallet, and never ever spend it. Keep it in a
little pocket away from your spending money for emergency situations, and I
mean emergency ONLY. What if you find yourself in a dangerous city with no gas
in your car? You’ll be able to get enough gas to get to safety and that’s all
that matters. And if you’re held up by a crook and you have no money to give
him? Right away he’ll think you’re lying and start to beat you up. As soon as he asks for money, give him that
$20 and tell him it’s all you have. There’s a good chance that will satisfy him
and you know what? He’ll leave you alone. “
Daughter: fearful for her money “give him all of
it??”
Father:
matter of factly, feeling smart and
protective “and more, if you have some! It’s not a question of saving your
hard earned money; it’s for your safety. Don’t you understand? Daughter, do you
know how important protection is? I want you to practice safe sex. I know that
it’s common sense, but realize what danger there is in unprotected sex. Think
about your health, and how quickly that can degrade after one thoughtless
mistake. Think about the cost of specialty doctors and special medications to
treat a disease given to you by a careless tough guy. And pregnancy isn’t
treatable like the herpes… you don’t want to end up tied to the captain of the
soccer team by a kid, do you? Think
about the cost of prenatal care… the pain of childbirth!”
Daughter: laughing it off “daddy I’m not going
to have baby!”
Father:
unconvinced “well just remember that
you can’t wear a condom on your heart. You’ve got to protect that too, you
know.
Daughter: only
listening to half of what father is saying by now “They make heart shaped
condoms?”
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteKay,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your piece, it was fun to read for you, but unfortunately I didn't get the experience of seeing you draw on the board while we read. However, I think the idea of it is very cool and you could do a lot with it. Similar to Jill's idea with Matt's piece, it might be interesting for you to have a computer plugged into the projector and drawing some sort of stick figures that way. Or even create some type of video collage of related (or unrelated) images to supplement the text. It's interesting that you decided to format it so that the daughter's lines are indented. To me, it gives the feeling that she is inferior. The piece took on a whole different dimension when you told us it was actually your concerns you were using the father character to express. After that I thought of it in a more split way, a more schizophrenic kind of way because I began to imagine you talking to yourself about it.
-Emily Riopelle
I enjoyed this performance Kay. Not because of my performance though; I'm sure it could've been done better. In any case - I thought this piece as it was written was very good at being what it was: an honest moment between a father and daughter. I wasn't able to see the drawings as I was performing, so I can't say for certain personally, but from the response in class it was done very well. I agree with what Emily said: having a projection where you wouldn't have to stand behind and draw as the performance was happening might be an avenue worth pursuing, but that's a small concern. Overall I thought it was an original, honest piece and I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but I don't see a comment button for the actual piece... Oh well, I second Matt and Emily on exploring presentation methods for this piece. It seems like something that would be really fun for you given your general excitement for multi-media exploratory pieces thus far. I would like to make a plea however, that if you decide to switch it up that you keep the stick figure form of your drawings. The stick figures brought an added depth to the piece. They contrasted the language, noting the importance of the speech while emphasizing some of it's ridiculous nature, as well as noting the contrast between the speaker (the father) and his audience (the child). Even maybe contrasting the comedic and the seriousness of the piece... Yea... it was a good show, friend.
DeleteX0X0
Monster
Kay I absolutely loved this piece; I thought it was very considerate, playful, and clever. You found a great way to remedy the gap between language and performance. It was like some shrewd mixture of body, voice, and imagination to mess with the audience's perception. By feeding the audience's imagination with your own, you have found a way to locate and appeal to the ideologies that we all have in common. Which is no easy task. I really liked the physical erasure that you used. It made me think more of the "Conceptual" usages of erasure. Once again, I really like the playful approach you took toward this performance. As a consideration, I think that you could work even more with the visual elements in respect to the linguistic ones. What I mean by this is see how even more playful and out the box you can get with your images and/or languages and how they work with and against each other. Maybe think how the execution of your performance could work if the images were completely unrelated to the language. I think that would be really engaging and you would have a lot of fun with it! Superlative Showing!
ReplyDelete-Jonah
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAs has been previously stated, the stick figure drawings were remarkably effective, and the performative action that resulted in those drawings was well-conceived, especially seeing as it was done on the fly. I didn't find that it was at all distracting from the acting/reading that was concurrently going on. As a matter of fact, I felt that it served as an enhancement, and I would like to argue against the idea of removing "the drawer" from the stage. To me, she is a vital part of what's going on, and her body language serves to communicate much that would be lost were the character off to the side, on a computer, triggering images on a backdrop screen. Sacrificing character interaction in the name of meeting some multi-media requirement seems silly. That being said, I might suggest that making better use of pre-production time would eliminate any need to make drastic, last-minute adjustments to the performance, and would help with the overall confidence level, too. Kay -- you do good work, and just some minor modifications to your process will help you to achieve the GREAT work of which you are plenty capable.
ReplyDeleteKay, I really enjoyed your work. Your use of the drawings was original, playful, and meaningful. As a piece about a daughter growing up, it shows very accurately how a father will always see her: as a child. It's like he was seeing these stick figures in his head. Seeing his daughter make mistakes. Explaining how to avoid them. I loved the erasing and re drawing as the dialogue went along. It gave an extra element to the piece that one rarely sees. Very well done!!
ReplyDelete