Once upon the time, there were four Gods

My love, my love or the peasant girl, written by Rosa Guy, is an adaptation of the Little Mermaid. Even though I have only read 3 chapters for now, I saw many similarities to the Little Mermaid. The book told a story about a peasant girl, called Ti Moune, on a village of an island. There were four gods in the setting: Agwe, the God of water; Asaka, the God of Earth; Erzulie, the God of love; Papa Ge, the God of death. They were kind of opposite to each other in pairs and they all have different and interesting characteristics. Thus, I would decide to stage them in different costumes, colors and figures.

For Asaka, she’s a female figure who’s in charge of the Earth. I would make her to have yellow or green dress and golden hair. Yellow is the color that similar to flowers or earth and green represents lives and plants. There should be a wreath made by flowers and leaves on her head to show all the beauties of the Goddess. She should be kind and soft as the mother God for all the villagers. She should be white, bright and beautiful in case to be admired by the villagers and Agwe.

The opposite side of Asaka is Agwe, the male God of water and the ocean. From the book, he likes Asaka and he is also irritable. If I’m staging the play, I will settle him in a long blue robe and a trident as weapon, which might be similar to the other God of the ocean Poseidon. If it’s possible, I will also paint him light blue skin, which might be strange and pale. The ocean has a set of blue color so that the main color of Agwe is blue. Since his easy to feel angry, he would act exaggerated and continue waving his weapon to show his anger. When Asaka show up on the stage, Agwe should also show up in the opposite side to show the difference.

Then, for Erzulie, the Goddess of love, the book hasn’t mentioned her in the first three chapters yet. I assume that she will be in red and pink. Those are colors that represent passionate and love. She should be sometimes being confused like a little girl, sometimes being happy like a girl in love, and sometimes being sad like an elderly who knows the hard of people’s lives well. She’s not as kind as Asaka, who might play in a mother’s role, and even kind of playful in case to show the variable of people’s love.

Lastly, for Papa Ge, he’s the God of death and he should be serious and solemn in my imagination. He should be in black, a deep black that even covered his head. People shouldn’t see his face since his in charge of death because it’s ominous. He should have a mask on his face. His voice might be sharp and I would make him laugh a lot, not laugh because of happy, but gloat and sarcastic. Whenever he comes up to the stage, he should be in a dark corner with in no light while the other places are all bright.

Overall, I wish those for characters will be really interesting by staging in this way. Also, I would like to watch some of the plays of the book to see if others come up with the same ideas.