Learning How To Drown, a musical written by Patricia Noonan and Amanda Jacobs in 2007, revolves around a the love story of a young couple, Emma and John, and their parallel to Emma’s grandparents, Aidan and Clare. The play illustrates the importance of fables and the balance between the themes of love and freedom. Emma, portrayed by Caroline Portu, is a young woman who is questioning the proposal of her long time boyfriend, John, while stranded in their house due to a hurricane. Paired with the flirty dialogue between the couple as they are introduced, Caroline Portu pursed her lips, batted her eyes, and repeatedly touched her boyfriend to add to the air of affection. She angled her head towards John when talking to him, leaned her shoulders
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When the storyline shifts back in time to tell the story of Clare and Aidan, Emma’s grandparents, Caroline Portu shifts her acting choices to portray her anger towards Aidan, and then her cheerful personality. Sitting on a rock, Caroline Portu portrays the character of Clare with a strong Irish accent. She furrowed her eyebrows, widened her eyes and used exaggerated arm gestures in the direction of Aidan, as if talking with her hands to get her point across. Her flailing, large arm movements while grasping her injured arm, along with her tense facial expression and fast, loud dialect clearly portrayed her anger for Aidan’s carelessness. Once the two stopped arguing and started talking about traveling, Portu relaxed her face, angled her body towards Aidan as though intrigued by what he was saying, all the while using high pitched, loud vocals in excitement. The two went back and forth with the actress conveying Clare’s hesitance towards traveling with this stranger but also her excitement. She alternates between body language indicating her intrigue and body language indicating her hesitance such as angling her body away from Aidan, slowing her vocals, and using a questioning tone when replying back to Aidan. This alteration in vocals, plays to Clare’s confusion. The slight shift in body language emphasized the shift away from anger and more towards
When the storyline shifts back in time to tell the story of Clare and Aidan, Emma’s grandparents, Caroline Portu shifts her acting choices to portray her anger towards Aidan, and then her cheerful personality. Sitting on a rock, Caroline Portu portrays the character of Clare with a strong Irish accent. She furrowed her eyebrows, widened her eyes and used exaggerated arm gestures in the direction of Aidan, as if talking with her hands to get her point across. Her flailing, large arm movements while grasping her injured arm, along with her tense facial expression and fast, loud dialect clearly portrayed her anger for Aidan’s carelessness. Once the two stopped arguing and started talking about traveling, Portu relaxed her face, angled her body towards Aidan as though intrigued by what he was saying, all the while using high pitched, loud vocals in excitement. The two went back and forth with the actress conveying Clare’s hesitance towards traveling with this stranger but also her excitement. She alternates between body language indicating her intrigue and body language indicating her hesitance such as angling her body away from Aidan, slowing her vocals, and using a questioning tone when replying back to Aidan. This alteration in vocals, plays to Clare’s confusion. The slight shift in body language emphasized the shift away from anger and more towards