Leaving's Preparation and Play Experience

  Last Thursday, my class presented several plays based on stories that was chosen by our English teacher. My team which consists of myself, Derrick, Xin Yi, Von Qan and Samantha, presented the play which is called "Leaving," written by M G Vassanji. The story tells Aloo, the last son of the five siblings, who wanted to study medicine in America after receiving a scholarship, but his mother tried to stop him from going there just because she doesn't want to lose him. I am here to share my group's preparation for the play, our experience presenting the play and what do I feel when I presented our play.

  Two weeks ago, our class went as usual, until our English teacher assigned us to present a play to the class. I was debating with myself and kept thinking 'What if I messed up?', 'I am not that good in acting.' and more. I was concerned and I was scared if I make my teammates disappointed. After all of us are assigned to our respective groups, I created a group chat and ask the members what character do they want to act out. I picked as the mother because I think I could portray her well and at the same time, I think I couldn't. Xin Yi became Aloo, Derrick as Mr. Velji, Von Qan as Mr. Datoo and Samantha became the narrator. What we didn't recall is that in the play, there is no narrator at all. We discussed about our roles and tried to memorise our lines for the play, but most of us had no time so this made the work a bit hard. A night before the play, I told my teammates to memorise one last time and do it spontaneously. Well, it worked out a bit.

  Our play seemed to be awkward during the change of scenes in the play itself. All of us gave our best to act out and we got some factual errors. I shocked myself with my sudden outburst since in the script, the mother scolded Aloo and thought he wanted to leave her and the sister at Tanzania. The most embarrassing moment is when I nearly swore during the play, which is a bad idea to do so. Overall, everything went smoothly and I failed to hide my embarrassment at the end not because of my teammates but because of myself.

  I gained some experience and it's my first time acting. I learned that everything needs its backup plan and everything has to be planned well. Teamwork is important as well and that's what I learned after this ends.