Good storytelling is timeless and transformative. For me, nothing beats just sitting down and hearing a damn good story. True, sometimes it’s cool to see random stuff blown up while mutants battle it out on a big movie screen. And sometimes it’s cool to play with fancy electronic gadgets that simulate reality while I avoid my own reality. And sometimes it’s cool to use those fancy electronic gadgets to blow up virtual mutants of my very own. But if you tell me an engaging story with fascinating characters, if you pull me into lives that help me forget (and better understand) my own, and if you get me emotionally invested in the outcome…I am putty in your hands. But is the art of old-fashioned, sitting-around-a-campfire storytelling dead? Can individuals with interesting stories sit on a stage and engage an entire bitter, jaded, New York City audience? Oh hells yeah. I witnessed such a feat when I attended Visible Theatre’s True Story Project: Faith last weekend. So afterwards I did a little digging to try to find out how they managed to keep me entertained without blowing up a single mutant.
These stories of faith were as varied as they were delightful. The show was humorous, heartbreaking, revealing, and exciting. Tim Wang’s hilarious and tumultuous tale of following his dream to NYC made me guffaw, Dacyl Acevedo’s story of watching her alcoholic father disintegrate made me weep, and Joe Sims’ crisis of faith caused by a 3 week-long mysterious illness left me speechless. The performers come from different levels of experience (some professional actors, others new to the game), but each individual has one thing in common: they tell a damn good story. Which is not an easy thing to do.
On the surface, the show is strikingly simple: eleven people perform original monologues about their experiences of faith. Krista Smith, Artistic Director of Visible Theatre and Co-Director of TSP: Faith, told me she developed the idea for True Story Projects (TSPs) after attending a storytelling conference in 2001:
“I knew right away that a personal storytelling project would be the first piece Visible would create. The group included many artists with disabilities and I was looking for a powerful way for the ensemble to feel seen and have their truth heard, but more importantly to feel connected to the rest of the world.”
Each TSP is the result of a two-year development process; members of the company take a true story from their own lives that relates to a central theme (this TSP explored faith, the last TSP dealt with sex, etc) and then spend two years revising, rehearsing, and transforming their true story into a performance piece to share with the world.
If storytelling were easy, it wouldn’t be an art. And it is an art. An ancient art. An art that may shift and evolve, but will never die. Why? Assistant Director and performer Joe Sims offered his hypothesis:
“Storytelling remains, I think, one of those most effective ways of communicating. It is deeply woven into our oral and written tradition. I don’t think the art has been lost, but each generation responds to and has its own set of things that are unique to it. Yet the essential ingredients remain the same. Not sure that there is a uniform standard that makes a story good, but for me the best stories are ones in which a series of obstacles are overcome, humorous, and honest.”
And Joe is right – honesty is a powerful tool. A truly honest expression of emotion has the power to stop us in our tracks. But when a storyteller sets out to write and perform a completely autobiographical story that is honest, emotionally connected, and centered around a very touchy theme, and then prepares to deliver that story to a theatre full of strangers…how the hell does that storyteller stay “honest”?
When I asked Co-Director and performer Julia Beardsley about what kinds of challenges were presented when the storytellers were turning their hearts inside-out and offering up the tender contents to the world, she responded:
“The stories are intensely personal and I sense that audiences immediately respond to this. These are the kinds of stories that are normally told in the wee hours of the morning after years of friendship. To be brought into the personal space of the tellers is a sacred experience. And it’s made all the more meaningful because we as tellers have placed some distance between ourselves and the stories. In other words, we’ve worked hard to make sure that the audience never feels we need to be taken care of. This hopefully allows audience members to take their own journey with each of the stories.”
So…the stories are honest and true but the performers have worked to distance themselves from the stories. How does that work? Krista Smith offered an explanation: “When we share it with an audience, the teller needs to have already moved through the pain during rehearsal or on their own and processed it enough to be able to re-enter the story as a teller – connected, but not drowning in it – at the helm of her emotions in order to be able to provide space for the audience to feel theirs.”
It’s a fascinating paradox…connected, yet distanced. Hmm. Revealing one’s truth can be very cathartic. But the magnitude of that catharsis can at times be overwhelming. Maybe that’s why we glean so much from observing the catharsis of someone else. By witnessing someone else’s truth, we are able to feel by proxy…we can relate to heartache and pain and fear through someone else’s experience of the world. It can help us see our own lives with more clarity because it is NOT our life.
And of course we relate the stories we hear back to ourselves. That’s only natural. Like it or not, that’s what it means to be human. We each travel around in our own little bubbles, swimming in our own set of problems and concerns and bullshit, and it’s rare that we venture out. But when a powerful piece of art (like an amazing, well-told story) manages to invade our bubble, we see the world and our bubble’s position in the world in an entirely new way.
So even as I report on TSP: Faith, I am doing so completely from the innards of my own little bubble. The experience of the event from the inside of my bubble went a little something like this:
“Well damn. They’re really brave. They’ve got some balls. I’ve got balls. Don’t I? I did…once. There was a time when I had balls. There was a time when I had faith. I really like her shirt. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do when I have to bury my parents. I don’t know how to express love in words. I don’t know how to be any less sad than this. This life is terrifying. He’s right – that’s all there is: love, struggle, and death. How do you say goodbye when you’re not ready? How do you maintain faith when your life is falling apart? Ha! I like it when she talks with that Spanglish accent. These people are cool. I want to have a bar-b-que and invite them all to my bar-b-que. I wonder if they eat meat. I suppose I could ask. I wonder if they’ll tell stories at my bar-b-que. Maybe I can tell them that they have to tell stories at my bar-b-que if they want to be invited. And I could get us some beer….”
And so on.
All to say this: our bubbles collide from time to time and those collisions can be cathartic and transformative and therapeutic and terrifying. Eleven brave souls bared their hearts in a small theatre on 24th Street, and it made my life a little bit better as a result. Storytelling may take different forms as our society evolves, but it will never die. As long as there are people loving and hurting and dying and wanting, there will be beautiful, important stories to tell….in the 21st Century and beyond. I applaud the cast of TSP: Faith for their courage and compassion.
The rest of the run is already sold out, but you can visit the Visible Theater website for clips of actors’ stories from previous TSPs and for details on upcoming projects.
