We all make mistakes from time to time; a slip of the tongue, a lapse in memory, a distracted moment. Knowing the essence of your story is the key to being able to recover and move on.
Yesterday I performed stories at the Phoenix Festival of the Arts. The number of attendees was small, but quite attentive. I began to tell The Magic Wand, where a poor street urchin watches a magician use a magic wand to produce food, clothing and gold. The boy refuses each gift the magician offers him, and when he is finally asked, “What do you want?" The boy replies, "I want the magic wand!"
In telling about the first trick, instead of a wand, I said the magician used a "magic red cloth" to make the reveal. I suddenly realized that I had left out the wand and unwittingly substituted the red cloth. (Don't even think of asking me how or why!) Oh no, now what?
My concentration lost for a micro second, I had to regroup. get the wheels spinning faster in that moment and realized I must use the same "red cloth" in each subsequent, magical transformation. Still a bit unnerved, I continued with the adjustment, and at the end, when the boy was asked the question, he replied, "I want the red cloth!"
I believe the key here is knowing your story vs. memorizing the story. I knew the essence of the story was about assumptions and power. The use of the wand or the red cloth was really incidental to the meaning underneath. As long as I recognized what I had initially done, I could re-group and recover
No one in the audience was the wiser. They still understood and liked the story.
- National Storytelling Network? You should be.
Sunday, December 22nd - 6:30 pm
