Storytelling Scene
Three nights of talking story with all ages

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jon Orque • The Honolulu Advertiser 13th Annual Talk Story Festival 7 p.m. today, Saturday and Sunday McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Beach Park Free 973-7262

With 10 storytellers a night on three themed nights — spooky stories, kid tales and adventure tales — this weekend's free 13th annual Talk Story Festival may be the bargain of the weekend. Besides mercifully keeping you from another night in front of the tube, think of it as an oral history lesson on one of the oldest forms of storytelling in the world. That would be actual storytelling, by the way.

Among the storytellers on tonight's Spooky Stories lineup is Daniel A. Kelin II, a three-year Talk Story veteran who became enamored of the oral storytelling traditions of the Marshall Islands while spending summers there teaching drama.

"The stories didn't impress me as much as the storytellers who told them," says Kelin, also drama education director for Honolulu Theatre for Youth. "I'd just sit there with them and a tape recorder and have them tell me the stories."

Told mostly by males — albeit from all walks of Marshallese life — the stories Kelin learned spanned an array of genres and generations, but related often to the storytellers' relationship with the environment.

With a heavy dose of that relationship rooted in the realm of the otherworldly, Kelin has chosen the supernatural legend "Two Boys Who Tricked A Tropical Demon" for tonight's reading. The story of a couple of young boys who wish to obtain a pair of fighting birds to help their family afford food, much of the story deals with the boys having to outwit a demon they meet in their adventure.

"I liked the simplicity of the storyline and the chance I get to really play with the characters," says Kelin. "The demon, especially, is a lot of fun to play. There's a couple of places he really gets carried away, and it's always fun to play that in front of an audience."

Fifth-time Talk Story tale spinner James McCarthy presents a couple of original works for Saturday's Kid Kine Tales evening, both with an element of musical storytelling.

"Snack Slingin' Sam" was inspired by McCarthy's overhearing a bunch of kids talking about which of their preschool teachers brought the best snacks to A-Plus Afterschool.

"The kids agreed that one guy in particular brought not only the best snacks but gave everyone a fair share of them," says McCarthy. "He was kind of a hero to them." McCarthy imagined a story ballad not unlike "The Ballad of John Henry's" battle between man and machine that would match up "Snack Slingin' Sam's virtues of decency, hard work, and fair share of snacks for kids" with a vending machine salesman out for the quick buck from little tykes.

McCarthy will also perform his own "Chimpanzee Childhood Champ," a first-person, er, first-chimp account of his life in the zoo.

A music and drama instructor, McCarthy has pursued storytelling since college, performing in a number of Mainland storytelling festivals for adults and children.

"Nothing against books, but there's magic in having one human being interacting with a number of human beings through story," says McCarthy. "It's totally fresh and unique every time, and yet it has a very ancient feeling to it."

Twenty-year professional storyteller and Big Island resident Sandra MacLees will be sharing a couple of tales with Middle Eastern origins on Sunday's Talk Story menu of Adventure Tales. Just don't make the mistake of asking her what she'll be reading.

"We don't read! We don't read!" reacts MacLees to her interviewer's dim-witted inquiry about storytellers. In fact, MacLees' steel trap of a mind effortlessly keeps fresh a vault of, by her count, more than 500 stories, each ready for immediate spinning.

One of MacLees' Sunday adventure stories, "Six Blind Beggars" from "Tales of the Arabian Nights," is "really an adult story, not a kids story," says MacLees. "It's one of those stories where there's a part where someone can go into any door in the castle, but not into the doors that use this little gold key. And, of course, the person in question always wants to go through the door that uses the little gold key."

Her second selection, "Land of the Dead," is "probably one of the oldest Egyptian stories on record," says MacLees. "It's the Egyptian version about what happens after we die."

"Some storytellers script and memorize, but that would just make me insane," says MacLees, referring to her storytelling mojo. Instead, MacLees simply learns the plot, outlines it in her head and improvises with each retelling. She also takes joy from seeing audiences react to her fascination with inhabiting character psyches.

"The great thing about the Talk Story audience is that they're there to really hear stories, and are always with you," says MacLees. "They're supportive and wide open and let you run with it."