Gladly Jumping Through Hoops by Carol Birch
3/13/2022
The following remarks build on my essay published in School Library Journal’s UP FOR DISCUSSION column in 2007. SLJ is a place where children’s book people like authors, illustrators, editors, book designers, publishers, and publicists gather with teachers and librarians. Unfortunately, the invitation to begin discussing how we might work together for the common good of promoting an author’s work did not invite a response from anyone. In the years since, storytellers have all but ceased to tell stories, poems, biographies, histories authored by others. It feels like another dismaying version of tossing out the baby with the bathwater.
Why do I tell stories penned by authors? Because with their words, like catalysts, refire my faith in humanity. They bring me to my knees, as the desire to tell rises up in me like a song. It feels that spiritual. When I find a story that captures ineffable joys and drenching sorrows, I try to get the feelings right. The emotional truth of a story appeals to me more than its plot or story line.
When we’ve found an authored story, we yearn to tell, clearing performance rights is the first step in that process. Unfortunately, those who control performance rights of copywritten material usually ask: where and when will you tell the story? A Catch-22. We can’t fully commit to a story, let alone schedule a performance of it until rights are cleared.
Problems also arise if we are told: not a word may be changed. As spoken-word artists, we know memorized monologues, recitation, and reading aloud can be powerful, but they are separate from the story-telling I choose to do. For me, storytelling is a performance medium, a departure from the grammar of print. Though performances are primarily aural events with physical components, they more effectively serve both the listeners and the stories by utilizing all the verbal and nonverbal cues available to us.
One autumn a representative granted me permission to tell Turman Capote’s A Thanksgiving Visitor – as long as it was verbatim. Given the length of the story and the likely hood of settings in which I’d tell this story, the text required editing. Later that same week, a local theater company advertised their production of – you guessed it! – Capote’s charming story. I’d bet the production was neither word for word, nor any more “faithful” than my proposed adaptation.
Most tellers I’ve met are humbled by and grateful for the great gift authors give when they allow us to work with their material. Most authors who read or tell their own stories know they do not strictly repeat them word-for-word. Films and plays do not reproduce stories verbatim when they adapt them, because they employ additional “languages” to communicate…as we do when we tell. A fundamental issue is: Will authors, and those who represent them, allow a story to have an independent life? The answer for filmmakers and playwrights seems to be “Yes!” Yet for storytellers, most often the answer is “No!” I’d like to think this isn’t merely a financial consideration.
The majority of bread-and-butter contracts between tellers and publishers would be covered by a non-exclusive contract allowing a story to be told X number of times for X number of years in educational, philanthropic, and other non-unionized performance spaces. Separate fee schedules could be drawn up for more lucrative venues. Please note, even though generous-hearted authors may want to grant permission to tell their stories, most do not own licensing rights to their material. This means they cannot grant us permissions they do not control.
Not all that’s written is suitable for telling. I seek material that can be interpreted conversationally – material suitable to the directness and confidentiality possible, when we tell one another important stories in semidarkness. While I usually edit a text, I rarely add it. Some editing is extreme. And, yes, I have created cringe-worthy moments by adding words. Nonetheless, my primary goal is to communicate the appeal of an author’s particular point of view, language, and style.
Mostly, a story sounds as an author wrote it. Yet adaptations occur when I:
Move tag lines to the beginning of a quote, rather than at the end or mid-quote, so listeners will know who is speaking;
Indicate characters with vocal changes, so that “he said sadly” is clear without repeating the tag line or descriptor;
Replace words with simple gestures;
Utilize a range of physical cues to communicate emotions like “disappointment overwhelmed him”;
Repeat a word or line for emphasis, as naturally occurs in conversation. Note: I have to beware the allure of doing this too often;
Struggle with problematic words;
Shorten a story because of time or age constraints;
And finally changes occur as an audience and I interact during a performance.
Audiences let us know when description goes on too long or when the narrative thread is lost to them. Responding to them can recalibrate stories. An audience of students might respond to Ray Bradbury’s story of a boy losing his best friend, but students are not – generally speaking – a nostalgic group. Details that might send adults spinning into reverie, when reading the novel or hearing the story, can be an impediment to those sitting in front of a teller. Fifty years of interacting with audiences have led to more-informed decisions about editing material, as well as when to – and when not to – respond to cues from those in the audience. It’s a learning curve which never seems to end.
There are those who would argue that a great author like John Steinbeck does not need me or any storyteller. Fair enough, but people need to hear Steinbeck’s lyricism, power, and story OUT LOUD. Hearing a chapter from The Grapes of Wrath opens a door into material all too often languishing on library shelves. I’ve heard Steinbeck’s novel, one of the greatest of the 20th Century, dismissed as too long, too daunting, or irrelevant. People hunger for the feast fine writers offer. My experience as a librarian and teller assures me listeners seek out authors after they’ve heard selections from their writings. Eyes and ears “read” differently; ears and eyes “hear” differently. When listeners hear great writing effectively lifted off the page, it provides a compelling experience of that literature. It simultaneously awakens a hunger, as it nourishes, in paradoxical ways.
During the pandemic, it’s been frustrating not to be able to tell most stories in my repertoire for Zoom-type programs. Though I may have permission to tell an authored story, that does not include permission to record – or live stream – in any way. So, one gift of the pandemic has been a requirement to create stories. Am I content with my efforts? Yes and no. Yes, parts of the stories are effective, but more importantly, it’s clear my writing cannot get better unless I keep at it. And, it’s also painfully clear I have a great deal to learn.
Recently, in review of the new film The Tragedy of MacBeth, A. O. Scott captured the appeal of my favorite stories. The authors whom I admire “build a space in which the language can breathe” and summon “thunderstorms of eloquence from intimate whispers”. (New York Times, 12/22/21)
I couldn’t say it better myself!
Thirty years of experience have earned Carol Birch a respected place in the forefront of the revival of platform storytelling: teaching at Southern Connecticut State University; lecturing at forty-one universities across the nation, as well as professional and corporate organizations; producing nine audio-anthologies for the National Storytelling Association; directing seventeen audio-cassettes for independent storytellers as well as August House, Lightyear Entertainment, and Weston Woods Studios.
Known for a compelling blend of energy, warmth, vulnerability, and directness, Carol restores orality and spontaneity to the fixed silence of stories found in print, but as a third-grader in North Carolina pointed out: “She knows that story ’cause she was there!”
In 1998, Carol was presented with the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award given to storytellers recognized as master tellers by their peers, setting standards for excellence, and demonstrating a commitment and dedication to the art over a significant period of time. She continues to learn, to teach, to perform, and to inspire.
