Analysis Paper

1

PROJECT RATIONALE

Oral Interpretation Project Rationale

Hayley Witham

COMM 333

California Baptist University

Introduction

My oral interpretation project is unique in the sense that it is a monologue of a single ant named “Z”. This ant is no ordinary ant, it is an ant from the DreamWorks movie, “Antz”. The movie portrays “Z”, the worker ant, who tries to analyze and explore his own individuality among the ant colony, and in doing so, discovers love, drama, and danger along the way.

Type of Performance

My project focuses on a mock therapy session Z is having “with himself”. It is a drama filled conversation with an ant therapist sitting next to him, however, he seems to only be talking to himself. Woody Allen is the voice of the ant, Z, and this opening scene depicts him to be in a destructive mode giving the audience a sense of drama. Therefore, this performance will be a type of drama with some comedy possibly thrown into the mix. In our text, Bell states, in the drama view of a performance, humans are “actors” who play roles; human activities are conceived as actions, acts, scenes, and events and they are driven by motives, intentions and purposes and interaction between humans relies on conflict (Bell, 2008). Conflict is a part of any social group, class or society. In the movie, “Antz”, there is a theme of social injustice and inequality. This constitutes a dramatic performance and this, is what I believe my project topic is to be. It is also important to have meaning or a connection to the piece. According to nfcfl.org, you must feel a connection to the material. You cannot expect an audience to get excited over a piece that has no meaning for you.

Due to the dramatic layout of the scene I chose in the movie, it is believed to be a dramatic artifact because it involves an exposition, rising action, and climax. It is a narrative from an ant in a personal turmoil with himself, not knowing the answer to his own thought of “There’s got to be more to life”. There is a powerful and dramatic message behind Z’s narrative/ monologue, and I believe my audience will interpret this drama presentation to be how Z portrayed it, an expressive depiction of the psychological warfare with himself.

References

Bell, E. (2008). 3. In Theories of performance. Los Angeles: Sage publications.

Guide for Oral Interpretation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nfcfl.org/