Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents: Performance Analysis

When doing a reading performance of a text, there are many choices that a performer can make. Everything that a performer does during a performance is a deliberate choice from one’s facial expression to one’s tone. A performer can also choose how they stand, how they project, and where they place the characters in the room. These choices can drastically change the feel of a performance. They can also communicate to the audience how the performer interpreted the piece. It is possible to have several different readings of the same piece and get several very different interpretations from each performer. Nick's performance of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents in particular, included some very distinct choices regarding the character’s tone. He embodied the characters of the girls through the innocent tone that he used to portray them. In this piece, Nick’s tone for the daughters was young, innocent and full of life.
This alludes to the fact that later in the book, the father and his daughters will experience a rift, especially when it comes to their relationships with the opposite gender. As the girls become more assimilated into American culture, they will clash with their father and his values, as they explore their own identity and sense of self. Nick’s placement of the girls away from their father shows this divide between them that is present throughout the majority of the book.

The choices that Nick made in his performance from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents embodied the text and brought the experience of the text into the room. His use of tone and placement worked together to convey the innocence of the girls, the hidden stress of the parents and the eventual rift that would occur between Carlos and his daughters. His interpretation of the text came through in this