Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know that I will be telling “radical versions of traditional stories” at the Newburgh Fringe Festival on Friday, October 16, and I’m pleased as punch!
I wanted to explain a little bit about WHY I’m telling “radical versions of traditional stories,” and what it all means.
I will perform four of these—two ancient Greek stories and two Bible stories that I will tell against the grain, queerly, and arising out of my own vision of holiness, justice, sexuality, and gender.
Why? I LOVE traditional stories — by which I mean myths, fairy tales, folktales, or any other stories that at some point arise from an oral tradition — and I’ve been learning how to tell them over the past 25 years. I love them for many reasons, and I believe they are the primary vehicle through which human brains make meaning of the world. Even our contemporary movies and novels are often versions of these deep, classic stories.
It’s not that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” Rather, these stories are so capacious, profound, and powerful that we make them new all the time — which is what my October performance is about.
One of my other favorite things about stories is that they have no fixed meaning (or “moral,”) but are endlessly suggestive and pregnant with meaning. Throughout human history and prehistory (absent political repression), we individual storytellers have always been able to tell them in our own way, with our own emphases and our own political predilections. That’s why there are so many different versions of myths and fairy tales, and many versions contradict one another. Even in religious traditions, many stories contradict one another, and their meanings are unremittingly disputed.
On Friday, October 16 at 6 PM, at the ADS Back Gallery in Newburgh NY, I’ll be telling my own versions of four stories that have fascinated and/or haunted me since childhood (in two cases) and adolescence (in the two other cases). I will tell two ancient Greek myths (the story of Dionysus, and Aristophanes’ myth about the origin of love), and two weird-ass Bible stories (Samson and Delilah, and Achsah, the woman who farts for the sake of justice in the Book of Judges). As you might expect, gender, sexuality, violence, and control (or lack of it) will come up a lot. So will the power that human relationships intrinsically have to fight the powers that be.
I’d love to see you there! You can buy $15 tickets at this link:
https://safeharborsofthehudson.thundertix.com/events/271223
I’m especially happy that there will be a talkback after the show so you can tell me what you think!
