Seasons Readings: The Reluctant Dragon

 

 

Of Dragons and Dinosaurs 1990-2004-2018

Listen to the story here.

This year I am revisiting a post of Christmas Past. When I first wrote this, Little Foot and friends were making plans to free themselves from the Sharp Tooth once and for all. The scene was from the Don Bluth film, The Land Before Time, in which a band of odd young dinosaurs trek in search of the Great Valley while escaping the ravenous T-Rex, “Sharp Tooth.”  It is, as the narrator explains, a journey towards life itself.

The dinosaur that year was Nick (at age 2.7) and it echoed a similar dinosauria with Jack 14 years before. A fascination that continued forward another 14 years with Jordan (now age 10.) As the photos above testify, all the boys, sooner or later, spend time in the dinosaur persona.  Not insignificantly, they equally relish the role of the Sharp Tooth and, by so doing, remind me that however cute the weak vegetarians are, we ultimately are more kin with the villainous predator.  Perhaps more than kin and less than kind.  The photo of Jack on the left is from Halloween in 1990 (age 3.3), Nick roars on center as Christmas approached in 2004, and Jordan rides his beast on the right this past Halloween, 2018.  Among other things, the photos illustrate that I have learned a few things over the years about fitting the dinosaur to the man and the man to the dinosaur.  My first attempt with Jack yielded an unwieldy head that he graciously suffered to wear for the sake of the photograph.  I am pleased to report that he has grown into the head-of-unwieldy-weight with an impressive academic record, a deep regard for ideas, a quick wit and a loving smile. Nick’s head, likewise, is keeping well apace of any enclosure that seeks to subdue him. Jordan happily handles whatever confronts him. His is a head-for-all-seasons.

This Christmastide will again be dragon-haunted.  So I turn to the tale of St. George and the Dragon.  A favorite for Christmas mummers plays, the pageant is a faux-Christian allegory of the triumph of good over evil, and may have an historical reference to some actual English triumph (the Welsh dragon?) but certainly has pre-Christian roots.  St. George appears to have come from Green George, a tree and nature spirit who is still present with us in Asheville in the form of the local craft brewery, Green Man Ales, which can be enjoyed at the local pub, Jack of The Wood. 

 Green George played a role in the spring fertility rites as the male principle bringing new life to the land. Perhaps the tale of the dragon-slaying has to do with the New Year battling the Old, Spring against Winter, Life against Death.  The western dragon is viewed variously as symbolic of the devil or of death. The image of the dragon hoarding gold and treasure and keeping damsels in constant distress is familiar.  In that sense, the battle is between Greed and Generosity, Covetousness and Charity, Taking and Giving, Holding On and Letting Go, Stifling and Creating…you get the idea.

But unlike our all-too-often seen habit of pitting good against evil and light against dark, the contest is really a kind of dance between interdependent forces. If we want heroes we must accommodate villains, and Rebirth necessitates Death. The dragon, therefore, may be too much maligned. He is, after all, a necessary and popular part of the pageant. Indeed, he may be an eternal and ineluctable part of ourselves.

And what about dinosaurs? One of Nick’s video programs on dinosaurs went to great lengths to distinguish between dinosaurs as actual creatures and dragons as mythical ones. But surely the dragon comes from our earliest encounters with dinosaurs, if not living ones, then certainly the readily viewable and dramatic remains. Certainly in the Gobi Desert, dinosaur remains must have been seen by early peoples and could well have influenced the traditions of the Chinese dragons. Likewise the dinosaurs of the American west may have influenced Native American dragon/monster stories such as the Illini Piasa. Why, then, could not the dragons of one era simply be the Iguanodons and Allosaurs of another? Though the language of science has separated factual dinosaurs from mythical dragons, it has not removed the sense of wonder both inspire. To a great degree, the fact of dinosaurs encourages the fantasy of dragons; for the tangible fossil record affirms the possibility of dragons, while it’s fragmentary nature commands imagination. The conception of dragons has been attributed to many causes including explosive methane clouds in ancient burial mounds (treasure hording, fire-breathing, dragons?) and the inchoate dream-making habits of our psychic nether-realm, the collective unconscious. The most compelling thinking about dragons I have come across is found in the Electric Universe, suggesting that dragons are largely inspired by lightning and its kin in plasma physics. This group meets in a medial realm, triangulated from science and myth, to conceive of the possibilities both direct our attention to: dramatic events observed and embedded in a flash of archetypal visioning, telling a story in myth that continues to resonate to the present day. (Check out Discourses on an Alien Sky.)

Dinosaurs and dragons occupy the same medial realm. That realm is a hunting ground for the spirit. For it is in the place of mediation between opposites that, if we’re lucky, we discover early on and, if we’re wise, we continue to explore throughout life’s journey. At some point in childhood we discover that the world is not strictly dichotomous, although binary organization will remain useful as a cognitive tool. We discover that in fact there is a third point not on the same line as our simple polarities: that is the place of color that exists in a triangular relationship with black and white. Now and Then are mediated by Might-Have-Been. Child mediates Mother and Father. Though “mediation” suggests a mid-point along a straight line, such as gray halfway between black and white, it can also be something more than a dimming of one extreme or a brightening of another. The navigational art of triangulation uses two known points to determine the location of a third and it teaches us that two opposing points can still orient us to a third possible direction. Like Zeno’s arrow, never reaching its’ target because the space between is infinitely divisible; just so, the medial realm is infinitely possible. The imagination abhors a vacuum and where one is found, the medial realm supplies rich possibilities. If there is Life and Death, could there also be Not-Life and Not-Death? If so, what might that look like? Ghosts? Vampires? Angels? Similarly, if there is Good and Evil, might there also be Not-Good and Not-Evil? What might that be? Enter the Benign Dragon and the Dissembling Saint. Now that offers much more room for possibility, adventure and whimsy than stark opposites!

So it is that I have chosen again for this season’s story, the wonderfully whimsical and curiously poignant tale of The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame. Grahame’s writing has long been a big influence on my own imagination and sense of story telling and so his story leapt to the fore as I contemplated the boyhood immersions in dinosauria. Here is a tale that invites us into the medial realm where possibility feeds the soul’s hunger for something other than the Known and the Unknowable. In so doing it reveals to us some useful lessons by way of allegory. First, that dragons need not be seen as all bad.  Second, that there may be some sense in connecting the possibility of dragons with the impulse to poesy. Third, that the role of the Saint may have something other to do than the mere vanquishing of objectionable nature, and that something may be reconciliation.

The dragon that Mr. Grahame gives us is a poet and a gentleman. Yet he is also a dragon, big as “four cart horses,” and therefore an established enemy of humankind.  What is the solution? Make a show of subduing him in order that he may “go into society,” and thereby become a source of enrichment for us all. How like the problem of the Artist is the problem of the Reluctant Dragon. Here is a source of great power, which we eliminate to our own great loss, but which we dare not allow to roam freely among us unchecked and unmanaged. Without dragons our lives are stale and mechanical. With them our lives are filled with wonder and possibility and the rich imaginative stuff that allows for the notion of something eternal, loving and universal in our nature. But dragons need friends to mediate foes. Enter the Intuitive Artist and the Instinctive Scientist, the dragon-dreamer and the dinosaur-hunter. These fellows among us keep the soul fires burning hot as dragon’s breath. I do not mean to suggest that dragons are without danger. Indeed, their dangerous nature is part and parcel of their special potency. Rather, what we need are people willing to engage with dragons, and saints ready to accommodate them. So Mr. Grahame gives us a boy. Additionally he gives us a girl and a boy whose tracing of dragon tracks in the snow conjures up the entire tale to begin with.  Of the two, the girl, Charlotte, makes the most telling remark, saying, “a little dragon would be nice to have. He might scratch and spit, but he couldn’t do anything really.” So saying, she informs us that we must embrace our dragons while they are small, before they are too hot to handle.

So here we are in the season of the birth of a savior with a story of a saint who allows for the conversion of a most talented dragon through the wise intervention of a well-read boy. I invite you into the story and ask you to wander up the road with a most rewarding threesome of Dragon, Saint, and Boy, like three ships sailing; a holy trinity on Christmas Day.

David Novak, Christmas, 2004 & 2018.

A Memory of Gilgamesh

Some short time ago the storytelling world lost a wonderful friend, artist, listener, and brilliant human being, Hope Baugh. She was for many years the Young Adult Services Manager at Carmel Clay Public Library in Indianapolis. She was also a vibrant storyteller, actor, teacher, and theatre reviewer. I feel blessed to have received the attention of her critical eye and to have been included in her voluminous theatre blog, IndyTheatreHabit.com. I have never felt so seen, honored, and appreciated by any other reviewer.

In memory and gratitude I post here her review of my presentation at Going Deep: Long Traditional Storytelling Retreat in 2009. Thank you Hope.

2009 Going Deep: “Gilgamesh” by David Novak

This is the fourth of four posts in a series about the third annual “Going Deep: Long Traditional Stories Retreat” held in Bethlehem, Indiana, on March 19-22, 2009.

The Storytelling
On Saturday night, the last night, I and the other retreat participants walked over to the Schoolhouse from the Storyteller’s Riverhouse to hear a version of “Gilgamesh” written and performed by David Novak and presented by A Telling Experience. Priscilla Howe introduced the show. Steve Boyar was the stage manager.

Yes, stage manager. David comes to oral tradition storytelling from theatre and, I learned later, from busking (street performance art that in David’s case includes clowning and mime.) His “Gilgamesh” piece incorporates the best from all of his backgrounds – the intimacy of storytelling, the interpretive skills of acting, the physicality of busking, and the design elements of theatre – to let his audience see that this 5000-year-old story is still a good one, and still relevant.

Steve is a storyteller, too – in fact, he and David met through one of David’s storytelling classes – but in this production he is content to stay completely behind the scenes. He told me later that the story is a little different every time. As the stage manager, he doesn’t follow written cues. He said, very modestly, “I just know the story.”

I imagine that being the stage manager of this storytelling show is a very organic and intuitive activity. Even though David and Steve have done a lot of work ahead of time and deeply considered each aspect of the show, the two men also co-create each performance as it goes along.

When the audience arrived Saturday night, the chairs had all been turned to face the small, raised platform at the end of the schoolhouse’s meeting room. The space had been outfitted with several theatre lights and extra sound equipment. Seven bamboo poles were stuck in weighted burlap sacks so that they stood upright. There was a pattern of smaller poles almost in a star shape – or maybe it was an arrow? – on the back wall, between two free-standing bamboo screens. Draped on the floor in front of the platform were two long pieces of brown plastic, with shards of clay and two or three loose bamboo poles strewn across them.

You can see a picture of a portion of the “set” with the house lights up in Priscilla Howe’s account of the “Going Deep” retreat on her blog.

I was delighted to learn later that every time David and Steve present this piece, they cut new bamboo canes from near their homes in Ashville, North Carolina. In my mind, this honors both the transience of oral traditional storytelling and the stagey quality of live theatre.

The “Gilgamesh” storytelling piece incorporated portable theatre lights, too, and several pieces of recorded music.

David wore black trousers and a subtly-striped, black and grey, short-sleeved shirt. He looked as if he had respected his audience enough to dress up, but his clothes also allowed him to move very freely, even incorporating joyful and impressive acrobatics from time to time.

The story was completely new to me. It went something like this:

Gilgamesh is the proud ruler of a magnificent city called Uruk. He is two parts female (from his mother, who was a goddess) and one part male (from his father, a human man.) He is raised mostly by his mother, but then a goddess makes and civilizes a friend for him, a man called Enkidu. Gilgamesh and Enkidu at first want to fight each other, but then they become best friends and witnesses for each other. They share many adventures, each of which has meaning. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh seeks immortality to ease his pain. After more adventures, more learning, and more pain, he finally finds peace instead. “Love the person you’re with, and eat the bread while it’s still warm.”

Oh, I am not doing justice to the nuances of the plot or the characters at all, but it is a powerful, powerful story, especially as David and Steve present it.

Later, when I learned the word “bromance” (buddy story about straight men) from a TV-watching colleague at my day job, I immediately thought of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

And David and Steve, for that matter. I wish I had thought to ask them what their wives think of this show. This version of “Gilgamesh” is much more than a re-telling of the first recorded bromance, however.

My experience of the piece was as layered as the piece itself. I laughed a lot – sometimes in recognition, other times in surprise. At times my face was wet with tears. Other times I was almost unbearably turned on. And still other times I felt just plain pleased to be taken not only to ancient Sumeria but also to the nineteenth century and George Smith’s re-discovery of the ancient cuneiform tablets, and, through brief references to pop culture, to various decades of the last century. David (and Steve) made the whole, complex piece very easy to follow.

There were two parts divided by a ten-minute intermission. At the end, David passed around a loaf of bread that Steve had baked during the show. We all pulled off pieces to chew. It was delicious!

The Workshop
The next morning we all gathered in the living room of the Storyteller’s Riverhouse for David’s workshop.

He said he didn’t have any of the handouts or other things that we had enjoyed in the first two workshops of the retreat, but “I will give you myself as much as I can.”

This is no small gift. David’s mind is as well-stocked as the great library of Alexandria. He also has a knack for exegesis, for exploring and explaining something point by point, word by word, or in this case, artistic choice by artistic choice.

His “Going Deep” workshop was therefore more of a companionable, conversational lecture than an invitation to self-reflection or a hands-on introduction to ritual, but it was textured and fascinating, rich with both personal insights and scholarship. Even though it was very different from either Liz Warren’s workshop or Marilyn Omifunke Torres’ workshop, I found it equally satisfying.

David had brought an iPod in a small case that converted into a nifty little stereo system. He played the pre- show music as we all were getting settled with our notebooks and coffee cups. He had also brought a small crate of books. He spread them out in a loose pile at his feet, ready to hold up as he mentioned them in his talk.

He began by saying that he planned to go through the show again, sharing information about the artistic choices he had made. However, first he wanted to give everyone a chance to integrate the stories from the previous two nights as well as the one he had told. He asked everyone to help him create a conversation of images and moments from all three pieces, “Like an overture in musical theatre weaves together the themes of an entire piece.”

He said, “Present whatever image occurs to you as you’re remembering the stories. Listen to the images that others present and relate your images to those. But just speak the images, don’t talk about them. We’re not having a discussion yet, just weaving connections. It’s okay to have some silence in the conversation, too.”

Someone said, “The red horse in the Grail story...” and we were off.    Afterwards, I did feel more deeply connected to all three of the stories.

David said that he does this exercise with his storytelling students before they tell. They share images from their own stories, listening for possible connections and resonances. Then when the students listen to each other’s full stories, they listen in a more coherent, woven manner.

It also helps them begin to move into teller mode. “Beginning storytellers are often caught in a fixed text,” David said. “This exercise challenges the grip of the literary mind...The challenge is to move freely within the story...The mind of a storyteller is different from a writer or a reciter.”

I want to try this exercise with my own storytelling students.

For the rest of the morning, David took us back through the “Gilgamesh” story. He played bits of music from the show – some of which he had created himself using “Garage Band” – and explained each bit’s purpose, such as foreshadowing, or focusing, or filling in emotional gaps, or mirroring the fusion of elements in the story, etc.

He referred to other stories and to other artists’ performances. He referred to ideas, quotes, books, poems, songs, and theories. He referred to issues and information from his personal life and his own journey as a storyteller. He brought forth from his own mind and heart all kinds of items to deepen our connection to the Gilgamesh story through his explanation of his own creative decision-making for this piece.

I scribbled notes as fast as I could, only speaking up to ask how to spell things like “trochaic tetrameter.” I took way too many notes to share all of them here. I’ll just share a few of the many, many items that intrigued me in David’s talk:

• On the importance of having and being witnesses: “How can we know another until we know ourselves? And yet how can we know ourselves until we know another?” 
• On the challenge of providing an epic experience in a modern setting: “We are not a tribal, traditional community. We don’t have a common principle of silence, where you don’t speak what everyone knows already (so our art has to fill in some of the gaps for our listeners)....There’s more to it than just the story. There’s the experience. How to make it immersive?”
• On honoring the original source: “If you just read aloud a translation of the cuneiform writing, you might think you were honoring the original story, but it would actually be like just reading aloud a libretto from a musical comedy or just reading aloud Shakespeare. You would not be honoring it... (And anyway) there is no such thing as a definitive text. The first written story of Gilgamesh was still recorded a millennia after the story was first told.”
• On being fearless as an artist: “Some artists think that being fearless is about coarseness and crudity. It’s not. Being fearless is not the same as being disrespectful. Anyone can be insulting. The challenge of the modern artist is to try and mean something. The truly dangerous thing is to be sophisticated and nuanced. Real nakedness is enigmatic.”
• On building a long piece that keeps the listeners engaged: “Bertoldt Brecht said, ‘As soon as your listener knows what you’re going to say, they stop listening.’ So you have to break the expectations.” 
• Gilgamesh felt abandoned by the goddess, but at the end he realized that he had never left her hand.

I hope I get to hear David Novak’s telling of “Gilgamesh” again some time.

By the way, David sent me some production photos, too, but I loved the sexy ambiguity of the show poster, so that is what I used here on my blog. You can see photos of David and learn more about his work on his website, http://www.david-novak.com/.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com. This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009.