This article, sans hypertext, first appeared in an issue of Christian Vision in the early 1990s. It was one of a series I did for that publication, a Christian writers’ newsletter from Skysong Press, who still publish the Christian fiction zine Dreams and Visions.
The storyteller mounts the platform and takes up his six-stringed lyre, and with his bold shout the audience falls silent, not daring to move a muscle. "Hwaet!" he cries, "We Gar-dena in geardagum theodcyninga thrym gefrunon...."
The year is 1991, the site of performance Vancouver, British Columbia. But almost from the first words, the audience is no longer there. Benjamin Bagby has magic, and he uses it to open the door into the misty world of sixth century Denmark. For the next hour and a quarter his listeners join the Scyldings and Geats in the famous mead-hall, Heorot, while the hero Beowulf makes good his vow to destroy Grendel, the monstrous descendent of Cain whose jealousy of human happiness has goaded him to a bloodthirsty spree.
I was there. Yes, the entire performance was in Old English; the audience was given a translation of the poem, and in the brief lulls during which the storyteller re-tuned his lyre, you could hear the turning of pages. But even this did not break the spell.
The storyteller mounts the platform and takes up his six-stringed lyre, and with his bold shout the audience falls silent, not daring to move a muscle. "Hwaet!" he cries, "We Gar-dena in geardagum theodcyninga thrym gefrunon...."
The year is 1991, the site of performance Vancouver, British Columbia. But almost from the first words, the audience is no longer there. Benjamin Bagby has magic, and he uses it to open the door into the misty world of sixth century Denmark. For the next hour and a quarter his listeners join the Scyldings and Geats in the famous mead-hall, Heorot, while the hero Beowulf makes good his vow to destroy Grendel, the monstrous descendent of Cain whose jealousy of human happiness has goaded him to a bloodthirsty spree.
I was there. Yes, the entire performance was in Old English; the audience was given a translation of the poem, and in the brief lulls during which the storyteller re-tuned his lyre, you could hear the turning of pages. But even this did not break the spell.
No costumes, no special effects. Just a man with a voice and an instrument. Yes, he had to re-invent storytelling techniques that no longer exist-- techniques that must date back at least to the time when David soothed the demonized King Saul with his harp.
But techniques--the gentle strumming of the lyre to evoke the ocean voyage, or the heightened speech that paints for us Beowulf's heroic character-- these are only the magic runes that unlock the door to the story. Bagby's Beowulf transcends mere performance, for having unlocked the door, he does not stand on the threshold, blocking our view, but strides in confidently, drawing his listeners irresistibly after him.
I am not a performing artist, and don't know exactly how Bagby did this-- how he got himself so much out of the way that we all knew we had come there not to see Benjamin Bagby perform, but to experience Beowulf. I suspect we see few performing artists who are so successful at what they do, because most of them do not want to be actors or singers, they only want to be stars. In short, to enter the magic door needs humility.
The same applies to literary and visual artists. And here I do know a little about how to do it, or at least how not to do it. Don't let a bad sentence stand, for instance, or you'll be blocking the doorway into your story with your own laziness. Don't waste time showing off your flowing prose, if what the story requires is action; then it will be your ego that bars the entry.
It amounts to loving the story you are trying to tell, more than you love being a writer. Like Saint Francis, the artist must want only to be a channel. By all means, develop your technique; no less a genius than Hans Christian Andersen had to return to grammar school at the age of seventeen, to get the basic education without which he would never have had the tools to write the tales that are now more widely translated than any other book in the world except the Bible itself.
But having learned the runes that will unlock the magic door-- having learned how to write description, how to reveal character, how to keep the narrative moving-- don't stand in the doorway admiring your accomplishments. Get out of the way, and let your readers come in.
EDIT addendum, 2008: I've watched the DVD, including the extras, and it's worth every sceatta.
But techniques--the gentle strumming of the lyre to evoke the ocean voyage, or the heightened speech that paints for us Beowulf's heroic character-- these are only the magic runes that unlock the door to the story. Bagby's Beowulf transcends mere performance, for having unlocked the door, he does not stand on the threshold, blocking our view, but strides in confidently, drawing his listeners irresistibly after him.
I am not a performing artist, and don't know exactly how Bagby did this-- how he got himself so much out of the way that we all knew we had come there not to see Benjamin Bagby perform, but to experience Beowulf. I suspect we see few performing artists who are so successful at what they do, because most of them do not want to be actors or singers, they only want to be stars. In short, to enter the magic door needs humility.
The same applies to literary and visual artists. And here I do know a little about how to do it, or at least how not to do it. Don't let a bad sentence stand, for instance, or you'll be blocking the doorway into your story with your own laziness. Don't waste time showing off your flowing prose, if what the story requires is action; then it will be your ego that bars the entry.
It amounts to loving the story you are trying to tell, more than you love being a writer. Like Saint Francis, the artist must want only to be a channel. By all means, develop your technique; no less a genius than Hans Christian Andersen had to return to grammar school at the age of seventeen, to get the basic education without which he would never have had the tools to write the tales that are now more widely translated than any other book in the world except the Bible itself.
But having learned the runes that will unlock the magic door-- having learned how to write description, how to reveal character, how to keep the narrative moving-- don't stand in the doorway admiring your accomplishments. Get out of the way, and let your readers come in.
EDIT addendum, 2008: I've watched the DVD, including the extras, and it's worth every sceatta.
UPDATE: Benjamin Bagby will once more be performing in Vancouver this November 2008
1 comments:
Wonderful! I took Old English in college, and loved it. Tolkien, I think, would approve of this...
-j.
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