Tuesday, July 03, 2007

forcemajeure: The Storyteller:

The theater darkens, and a fat man sits at a simple wooden table. Before him sits a glass of water, a black handkerchief, and a stack of handwritten notes on yellow sheets torn from a legal pad. The lights come up, and he tells a story. He is brightly lit in clear white light throughout; the stage and a nondescript background are lit subtly in reds and blues, shifting color subtly as he moves from scene to scene in his story. Each scene break is marked by the turning of a page, perhaps nine or ten times in a ninety minute story; his notes constitute an outline, not a script, but the storyteller modulates his voice and repeats key phrases, sometimes for comic timing, sometimes to maintain a rhythm, and sometimes for the sheer pleasure of saying "black magic sex cult" over and over.