In oral storytelling, the performance of the talesmen is just as important as the tale that he tells.
Bardelys had begun to listen to recordings of volunteers reading classical, public domain books. He had begun with a reading of Rafael Sabatini’s famous novel, The Sea Hawk.
Sabatini had been one of his favorite authors when Bardelys was a lad. Imagine then his chagrin when the person who had volunteered to read this book had so much trouble performing the tale. Groups of words and phrases were not spoken together as they should have been; and odd, archaic phrases were pronounced strangely (at least in the ears of Bardelys).
The result was a tale just barely worth following – indeed it was just barely able to be followed.
It struck him then, just how important the performance of an oral tale is. It seemed to him now that the performance was perhaps even more important than the tale that was to be told.
And yet he had to consider the Sabatini had written his book in order for it to be read, and not spoken aloud. Sabatini’s talesmanship is so good that the tale could very well stand a good recitation. However, that was not the author’s primary intention when he wrote it, and Sabatini’s love for archaic phrases and words of the historical period would make it difficult for any modern reader to read the tale aloud. Moreover, it was twice the challenge for an American to read archaic British phrases, such that Sabatini loved to employ in order to give his readers more of an authentic flavor of the time and place of which he wrote.
It is also true, that the true oral storyteller does not read his tales – he performs them, he does not recite them. He does not read off a page, nor does he recite from memory. Instead, the true oral storyteller knows very well in his heart the key signposts of his story, along with side trips and alternative choices along the path to the eventual end. He then adjusts his performance (both in his manner, his tone and the words he uses and the exact shape of the story) according to the audience as he finds them, and as he sees them reacting to his tale.
Who among us, Bardelys wondered, could not tell immediately the difference in tone of voice in the matter when an amateur reads something off a page and when he tells you something in conversation?
Bardelys followed this line of thought to its ultimate conclusion: for it meant that in the future, talesmen who want to record their stories in radio or podcast form, ought not to read them as they are written, but rather, holding the story events firmly in mind, these talesmen should simply tell us the tale naturally, almost conversationally.
Bruno Bettelheim mentions this in his wonderful analysis of fairy tales – how important it is for a parent to tell his children fairy tales, rather than for him to read the tales. Bettelheim, of course, was at least in part interested in the parent engaging with the child rather than sticking his nose in the pages of a book in the mumbling out phrases as he found them, or even sticking the book in front of the child’s face and reading the phrases with a finger functioning as the bouncing ball of old time musical movies.
And yet, the same applies to a real oral storyteller, whether he tell his tales face to face with his audience, or whether he record his tales to be distributed.
The oral tale is a performance, and not merely a transcription or recording.
(Composed by dictation Tuesday 30 September 2008)
