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Speaking
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Santa Barbara News Press LIFE Stories (and their tellers) still engage imagination of
audience (Reprinted with permission from the Santa Barbara News-Press) It has been three years since we formally dropped in to review Speaking of Stories, Santa Barbara’s showcase for professional actors reading great works of literature. In the interim, the program has undergone significant changes, including a vastly expanded audience and a resulting change to a larger venue. Monday night’s sold-out attendance at the Lobero was due in large part to the inclusion of John Cleese on the program, the latest coup in the series’ ability to land prestigious guest performers. To anyone who remembers the program’s early days, the move from the rickety intimacy of Victoria Hall to the plush Lobero has inevitably brought a more formal tone to the presentation. The actors are physically farther removed from their audience. Artistic Director Karin delaPeña’s polished introductions, the use of incidental music preceding each reading and the spotlight illuminating a gleaming, transparent Lucite podium in place of a plain wooden one exude an aura of upscale elegance and sophistication. Nevertheless, once the performance begins, we immediately realize the benefit of that new podium in revealing, rather than hiding, the reader. The actors’ casual dress and respectful presentations quickly pierce the formality. Beneath the plusher trappings, at its core Speaking of Stories has remained true to the simplicity of founder Steven Gilbar’s central vision: engaging the active imagination of its audience. That’s an increasing rarity in an era dominated by spoon-fed entertainment and the program remains one of our few public resources of the art of writing. The centerpiece of the evening was Cleese’s reading of "Sanatorium", one of W. Somerset Maugham’s stories scrutinizing the human species through the coolly observant eye of his fictional alter ego, the jaundiced (and in this case mildly tubercular) World War I spy, Ashenden. Ashenden’s espionage exploits, however, play no part in this story, which focuses on the various patients in a Scottish treatment center for TB victims. Cleese’s clipped, galloping cadences proved well-suited to Maugham’s narrative rhythm and the story’s stunning moments of naked feeling poking through surface reserve. Cleese also brought distinctive voices to the eccentric characters, but sufficiently toned down to prevent turning the story into a full-fledged Monty Python skit. Benjamin Bottoms began the evening with a treat for Jack London fans – the original 1902 version of "To Build a Fire." London’s more familiar 1908 rewrite brought a more downbeat ending to this tale of a foolish man’s solo attempt to brave the bitter cold of the Klondike, but the early version is a fascinating glimpse into the young author’s maturing style, before his vision darkened into complete misanthropy. Bottoms’ delivery began matter-of-factly, pivoting on the single moment of miscalculation that reduces the protagonist from master of the elements to a helpless victim desperately struggling for survival. The crowd murmurs at the crucial turning point testified to the rapt attention a simple reading can command. Margaret Kemp's reading of Alice Walker’s "Everyday Use" afforded the evening’s most accomplished performance. Walker’s story about a simple, unschooled rural black woman’s alienated reunion with her citified daughter (who has changed her name from Dee to Wangera in a shallow return to African cultural roots) features a lively first – person narrative voice – the only story on the program to do so. Seizing the performance opportunity to the fullest, Kemp made it her own in a riveting delivery. The only flag in the evening’s momentum came at the end of the first half, with a lengthy video showcasing Speaking of Stories’ community outreach programs in the schools and youth-at-risk programs. While the cause is worthy and deserving of attention, it would have been better handled in a more abbreviated pitch at the beginning, instead of making the audience feel like we were sitting through pledge week on PBS. This misstep notwithstanding, Speaking of Stories continues to recapture the magic of our first communion with literature, listening to the tales that were read to us as kids. |
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