Fordham High School Senior Aiko Vidal on "The Giver"

Aiko Vidal is a senior at Fordham High School for the Arts in the Bronx. They concentrating in theater tech. They were an intern with Literature to Life through the CTE Internships Program, funded by the NYC Department of Education, from January through May, 2023.

I read the book The Giver by Lois Lowry and then watched Literature to Life's one person performance of the same title. Here is my reaction:

I enjoyed the book, even if it had some dry spells, but in the performance, there was quite a difference! The performance kept my attention at all times and I was thoroughly entertained through it all. Even though I imagined things differently in my head, such as the tone of the way certain things were said and the movements, the actor, Aurea Tomeski, still managed to somehow capture the emotions and portray each individual character perfectly.

Personally, my favorite characters that the actor impersonated were the main character, Jonas and his younger sister, Lily. I thought it was creepily accurate how Lily’s voice was portrayed compared to how I had imagined it.

At first while I was reading the book, I was strongly pulled into and enjoyed the first chapter. Eventually, the language began to push me away. I found it to be plain and yet somewhat complex. However, there were scenes that drew my attention right back to it.

Watching Literature to Life’s production version of The Giver held my attention much longer and made me realize how great the story really is. The performance got to all the scenes that stuck with me quicker, but without losing any detail about the characters and the strange world they are a part of. 

It feels as if once the story had been brought to life, it made more sense to me. Watching the production made the storyline much more eye catching as well as palatable. The voices, the movements, and just the overall ability to squish a lengthy book into something much more condensed made the entire experience better for me. The performance inspired me, a manga-styled digital artist, to create some sketches of moments that made a big impact on me. Please scroll to see the drawings and read the captions below each drawing to understand more about each scene that made an especially strong impression on me.

In this art piece, Jonas is seen sitting on a red sled with a thin looking blanket covering both him and Gabriel with tears flowing down his cheeks. The reason I drew this piece is because the end of the story was so vivid in my mind that it just stuck to me. Watching the production’s version of the end had me in a shock! Even though I knew what happened from having read the book, I still was in shock!

In the ending, Jonas finds out that his whole life consisted of lies. He found out that euthenasia was a frequent practice and that his father had a main role in killing the people of his community. Upset by his findings, Jonas somehow escaped his civilization with baby Gabriel, trying to do what he thought would be best for the both of them. I could just imagine the bright blue pleading eyes of Jonas when he ended up finding a new city. But was finding the new city just a hallucination from Jonas developing hypothermia and dying? Or did he actually find a new city to hopefully thrive in?

In this art piece, Jonas is seen holding an apple with a confused yet amazed expression. Notice how the only thing in color is Jonas’s eye as well as the apple? Well in this scene, Jonas goes to eat lunch with his friends after they each received their societal roles. As he is tossing this apple back and forth between himself and another friend, he notices a glint of something strange. The apple had changed to red, which confused Jonas considering he had no sort of understanding about basic things like colors. He thought that maybe something was wrong with the apple. I find it interesting to think about how it feels to not know things that would be basic to us, such as color and emotions. It must’ve been frightening to Jonas to make such a discovery that lasted only for a second before the color disappeared.

In this piece, Jonas is seen in “formalwear” with speech bubbles chanting his name. Jonas was going from age 11 to 12, and his civilization has a ceremony when kids get older and give each kid a job at the ceremony. He was at first skipped over to go to his friend behind him. They didn’t assign him anything during the ceremony. Everyone in the crowd was panicking wondering why things were out of order. They aren’t used to things being outside of their uniform lifestyle. The person who runs the ceremony said Jonas will be assigned a special job that needs to be given in private. The crowd started saying his name in encouragement and excitement because he was chosen for a special job, but Jonas is really anxious about this.

The concept reminded me a little of Squid Games. They even have to wear a uniform, and I put Jonas in sort of standard looking clothes, like a uniform. This civilization reminded me of that and how you have to just play the game society is telling you to.