Reading vs. Performance

For this blog, I chose to write about the differences between reading a story, poem, or monologue and actually seeing it performed.

- This past friday in class we went over a story from Ensler's "I am an emotional creature" story. In the story the main subject is sex. As you read the story or poem as it seems to be written in a poetic format, you feel as if it's just one person saying many peoples different point of views on the subject. However, when we broke the story down into characters and had the characters perform the story for us in front of the class everything changed. The tone changed, the setting changed, and overall the whole atmosphere changed.
- The different expressions, voices, and gestures changed the entire poem, to me. When reading the story I never thought of it being a group of people or friends talking about sex, I thought of it more as the writer compiling these experiences and putting them together in the story.

- The difference between reading a story and seeing it performed is also shown by Eve Ensler with her Vagina monologue performances that I have watched on the internet. The tone and use of expression through something little like more emphasis on a word or lengthening a word out has a great effect on the viewer or listener. For example, when the man sitting in the front of the room performing as a character said "it(sex) should be illegal" using a higher pitched and more strung out voice, it made everyone laugh because it seems like the quote was supposed to be funny but, yet when you read it it doesn't come off as a joke or something intended to be funny at all.