Fate, Destiny, and Musicality Make for a Great Show

Fate and Destiny:

- “But the wealthy in towns, protected from the excesses of the gods’ furies, claim to be   masters of their own destiny. The peasants accept the the will of the gods as theirs.”

-This is on the first page of the novel. It is made pretty clear from the beginning of the book that for the purposes of this story, the gods are very real, sentient beings.

-The peasants in particular have pledged their loyalty to their will.

-Everything that happens to them is a direct result of the gods’ plans for them and they accept whatever is that life throws at them because of the belief that there are so far superior to them.

-The gods control everything. All of her decisions, everything she does, is because of a plan they set in motion.

-She goes to visit Daniel because she “[has] been sent by the gods.”

- She begs them for help, convinced that they will assist her- “Agwe you who are responsible for my life.”

-This is not just a belief. They are very real to these people. The book is magical realism- we see the gods and we watch them interact with each other, albeit briefly. “Agwe roared.” and  “To her watchful eyes, a shadow appeared against the outside darkness, a shadow that became thicker, larger, then formed itself into a man…”

Formation of Idea:

- I wanted the gods to be telling the story because that’s Desiree’s reality. But just look at that word they. They who? The gods are an ever present power looming over her world. It’s that untouchable, unreachable, otherworldly they that got me interested in their role in the story. We see bits and pieces of these gods’ complex personalities, but we never get the full picture. We know that Erzulie is “vain” and that Agwe is “brash-sounding,” but what are their motivations. I wanted to know what they are thinking. What is running through their heads? What prompted Agwe’s rant? I wanted to answer these questions. I also wanted to run with this theme of destiny. Desiree’s actions are all the result of destiny, or at least that’s what she thinks. I took that literally in our interpretation. The gods control everything. They oversee all decisions. A person’s fate is the result of the gods’ ministrations, not their own free will. I came up with the idea of placing them in an office. They file away people’s fates and make daily decisions on how their lives are going to go, how happy they are going to be, how much food they will have to eat. They are ruling these people. The world and its people are the gods’ “pawns, [their] game pieces.” The office setting provided a clinical distance between these people and the gods’ decisions. Everything is up to them and everything, to them, is just another business decision and the only motivation is their own self-satisfaction. I named our script G.O.D.S: The Global Overseers of Decisions Service. This separated the gods from the world entirely and placed them in this otherworldly, but so relatable and recognizable, location. We then began to develop our characters.

Character Choices:

• This is a book of dualities.
• Papa Ge and Erzulie- tone(high and fast vs. low and slow)
• Costume choices- hints of nature and otherworldliness under business casual
• Asaka is preachy and ver pro-earth, but she’s young. In the story, she has a depressed period that leads to her killing a lot of people. I picture her young.
• Everyone has relatable human characteristics- poking fun at the ridiculousness of the situation. These people are selfish and are motivated by their own emotions, but are in charge of literally everything.
• Underlying conflict was between Agwe and Asaka. Desiree is a ploy to get them back together.
• “infidelity”- mentioned in the book in passing, but I latched onto because, well, I have a preference for the dramatic.
• Quotes to show Agwe-Asaka relationship through our only glimpse of them in the story-  "It's you who causes Asaka pain, Agwe. It's your rage that destroys her."
  "The houses they must build, their ships, the statues that must be carved, the charcoal they have to burn. It is they who are thoughtless." Agwe
  "Gasps from villagers who had lost homes, lost lands, lost families in the most recent storm."
  "These gods locked as they were in their world of power and vanity did not care about her, about the peasants." Desiree's thought
• Agwe wants to protect Desiree for Asaka- Asaka grows attached to her
• Erzulie- sort of a ring-leader; wants the best for Asaka- " I am Erzulie, your loa of love. I do not hold you to that vow you made on that stressful night." - Kind, forgiving- we drew parallels
• All think of people as less than them even if they don’t hate them.

Personal Character Choices:

• Asaka is the earth. She cares about how her fellow "workers" treat the environment even though we know that she is responsible for the starvation and misfortune experienced by the humans on earth. I worked hard to develop a character that is a tiny bit hypocritical, but not entirely unlikeable. She's a little whiny and she is depressed. She cries at the end of scene one and cries "everyone leaves me." She's a little overdramatic and fond of storming in and laying done some serious criticism of her peers. She's not afraid to shame, but when confronted with the same questioning of her methods, she kind of blows up or shuts down(the very beginning and her storming out of the office after her conflict with Erzulie.)

Staging:

• Set up as an office. Asaka and Agwe on one side and Papa Ge and Erzulie on the other. We paired up these opposing pairs to further show their differences as they stood next to each other.
• There is a "portal" to Earth. There is a projector hooked up to a computer and we even had technical problems. Such an important task as checking up on the status of earth is made into a small inconvenience. We wanted to focus on the irony of the situation and how that gives way to a universe of magical realism.