How to tell a fairytale!

I will be performing Love in the Shadows – dark, gothic tales about wolves, devils and girls who turn into flowers with my teeny, tiny shadow theatre at The Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, on Sunday 15 December, as part of  ‘Angels Aren’t Just for Christmas… A Festival of Fairytales for Grown-ups’ 11th – 15th Dec 2013. This festival has already sold out, though some tickets might be available each day. BUT… I will be performing Love in the Shadows again at Soho Theatre on 6 January 2014 – book now!

 The festival selling out so fast is very heartening! Adults still believe they need fairytales and that there is something valuable hidden within them. Following the narrative of a fairytale through its familiar and unexpected images, formulas and repetitions, surreal detours and surprises, is profoundly enriching. Fairytales take us into a world that already exists inside us. We can meet the lost prince, raging hag, wise fool,  jealous sibling, powerful magician. We can be helped by breadcrumbs and stones, the sun and moon, towers and gates, a talking bird, a flying horse. Listening to stories a mysterious process can take place, Aristotle wrote about it in The Poetics and called it catharsis. By following a fictional character enacting a narrative in another world, our own desires and disappointments can be experienced and transformed.

 Telling a fairytale to a large audience is hugely demanding. What has been written down or collected is just bare bones as far as a performance is concerned, it needs lifting-off the page, re-making and bringing to life. Flesh needs putting on the bones: holes in the plot need to be resolved; characters need to speak; locations described; emotions felt; meanings conjured; gestures, movement, space and voice explored … And don’t stint on those repetitions! Fairytales are full of repetitions – three brothers; three tasks; three magic objects; three fates and three golden apples! Repetitions are a chance to find humour, to play with anticipation and pace, drama, and surprise. Max Luthi a brilliant writer on the deep structure of fairytales, wrote:

“The seeds of narrative dynamism are there ready in the narrative elements, but it requires talented narrators to hit upon and make use of them.” Max Luth, The Fairytale as art form and portrait of man (75:1987)
Indiana University Press. 

Fairytales are full of secrets. I love them, and relish the chance to try and do them justice. Hope to see you for Love in the Shadows at The Bargehouse or Soho Theatre!