The Fox & The Grapes

 

As ancient as this fable is, it remains relevant. At the time (1992) I was angered by the over-development of the San Diego coastal communities where mountain tops were leveled to provide platforms for condominiums with ocean views. At this writing (34 years later) I am angered by a president who destroys what he cannot have for himself. Notably, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

This performance is a good example of my evolving style at the time as I was moving into storytelling with my theatre arts skills in play; specifically my street-busking work as a kind of human cartoon.

 

As I was gaining a larger audience, I took criticism from a few other storytellers who felt my work was somehow inauthentic. "You're really a clown, not a storyteller," one critic suggested. At the time, I thought I should feign a down-home simplicity, perhaps wear a vest and a greek sailor's cap, and simply sit down. But I realized that doing so would be disingenuous. 

Ultimately, I decided that to be authentic, I must include my personal style and theatre training. I toned down some of the histrionics over time, mostly because I wanted to be eclectic and unpredictable. Theatre is, after all, an art form of many diverse styles and formulations: drama, spoken word, mime, commedia, puppetry, and so on. I opened myself to all these forms. [Hence my Little Red Riding-hood scarf-switching characters or my blank verse Cinder Girl.]

As for the clowning, my childhood influences are many. I loved the antics and verbal pyrotechnics of Danny Kaye, the prats of Buster Keaton, and the timing of Chaplin. But because my body type is tall and lanky, I draw more from the likes of Ray Bolger,* Red Skelton, and Dick Van Dyke.

On the street, busking for tips from passersby, I learned to be eclectic: to switch my style before I lost the interest of my audience. By switching from a clowning mime (vocalizing my sound track,) to juggling, to mask characters, to playing a penny whistle, and so on, I was able to gather and hold an audience for 45 minutes and more. The tips were better.

*I played the Scarecrow in my adaptation of the Wizard of Oz for my community college theatre department - God bless Miss M.