Rehearsed readings sit at the base camp of storytelling. From there, the story can unfold in a written form, or can be received orally. For the audience it is about moving between a narrated experience and a dramatic experience. The actor as narrator directly addresses the audience to tell the story, which creates an intense and strong feedback loop around the audience and the actor as storyteller.
There will be moments when the actor will act out an aspect of the story physically or in dramatic interaction with another actor, but most of the time it is their voice, their intonation, engaging the audience. The story itself then becomes alive within the space, the audience works with the storyteller who guides their imagination. It is the images, sounds and spaces within the mind of the audience that also contribute to bring the story alive.
The audience always comes back to the story and the narrator as their base.
Within an immersed audience setting, each person experiences the thrill and excitement of being part of an audience that is swept away in the telling of a powerful and moving story. When you can hear a pin drop, when every single person in that room is brought into the enchantment and are literally under a spell of the story – that’s the experience of listening. Oral story telling is an intimate thing and also an ancient thing. The audience goes on a well worn journey with the actors.
For this experience there is the magic of a story unfolding – the audience are totally participating in the unfolding of the story and I hope they go to different places and worlds and emotions in their own minds. And they go away with a strong curiously about their own lives, or their own relationships, or their own ability to write as well.
Storytelling is an ancient art – it reaches deep into our archetypal psyche and our relationships particularly as children. In hearing other people’s stories we are making sense of what they have experienced, and also what our own value systems are. What would we have done in that situation? Why did that person make that choice at that time? What is the difference between that woman’s experience and my own? It ends up in a greater understanding of each other’s experience and life.
This is why the project works with trained actors, who can take those aspects of dramatic expression and use them to the mx, for the benefit of the audience. And every night is different and every audience reacts differently as a group. Placing them within a small immersed environment brings out that quality of a group as listener.
Lliane Clarke, Producer/Director