Today was a special event in the BFI (bfi.org) network, as we gathered around the figurative campfire to both hear and tell stories. D.W. Jacobs is a playwright but also director, which means he's by definition a skilled acting coach, as what a director does, more than run cameras or wrangle lighting, is give the cast guidance with regard to their roles.
Doug structured our Zoom meetup like a workshop in that everyone was given an opportunity to construct a story, like a fairytale, meaning following a formula but not too mechanically. Keep it from the heart, tell an authentic story of what brings you to this campfire, here in the shadow of one Buckminster Fuller.
A story has a beginning, middle and end.
There's an event, a skeletal plot.
The story itself has mnemonic value in that it self coheres by dint of its own protein-folding chemistry.
That in itself was a great beginning, but Doug backed it up by (a) enforcing a time limit, albeit in a friendly manner and by (b) offering criticisms, as one would after a performance, by an actor on stage, trying out for (auditioning) or maybe learning the nuances of (already cast) an important role.
"I notice you used a whole minute introducing and explaining why you were telling the story, when a context had already been handed to you" (I'm paraphrasing). "That's a great billboard or advertisement for your being about Bucky, but what's the micro event you hope we will remember?" and "Those doing this later are going to benefit from the feedback I'm giving the first few".
Towards the end, he'd stopped coaching. He figured we'd gotten the exercise by then and everyone said their piece. I was glad to catch Chad's.
Autobiography lends itself to scene construction and plot design so I'd say everyone followed the instruction insofar as they recounted a first person narrative i.e. with one's self the protagonist. I think we all did that.
My story featured Fred Craden, my middle school sociology teacher (amazing, right?) at the Overseas School of Rome, and how he'd had my dad address our class during "what's your parent's job day?" and Dr. Urner, the city planner, unrolled some impressive maps of some city (probably in Libya but I don't remember that detail).
Dad directed our attention to a color code, a shade of green, appearing all around this city map, although not right in the downtown or CBD (not in this one) and asked if we could decipher the color's meaning. "Parks?" Nope. "Zoos?" Nope. "Golf courses?" Nope. Turns out they were cemeteries. Forehead slap. Of course, those are ubiquitous.
Then, the story goes, Fred Craden and fellow teachers all came back from some off-camera event, and were jabbering excitedly in some cultish jargon, about how squares were unstable and tetrahedra were where it's at.
I only figured out later what had happened: they'd been to some Bucky talk obviously. I still haven't figured out which one exactly. Late 1960s or very early 1970s -- by 1972 we'd left Rome behind and were in the Philippines, where Bucky would also appear (I'd only find out later).
My other story (these were short): when Doug and I first met, and he was doing the play in Portland, in 2008, the Scrooge play (Christmas Story) had to closed, for election day. They wouldn't sell nearly enough tickets to make it profitable, with everyone home glued to the TV, watching Obama's triumph.
But Doug's play was in "the crypt" in the Portland Armory (by now remodeled into theaters), and the company hatched a brilliant plan: entice engineers and their families from the IEEE mailing list, give them a special free lecture, before the play, by Kirby Urner. Just in general be solicitous and kowtowing.
It worked: the place was packed, and during half times we could double check how the election was going. A fun evening. I enjoyed the play too.
OK, then Doug did something brilliant (again).
He asked us to speak up if anything in another's story had in turn sparked our storytelling impulses. Like when that one guy talked about Barbara Marx Hubbard as inspirational, I was taken back, in my thinking, to dad's volunteering for her campaign. I got to join him, in her house, and hear her speak.
She was running for Vice President, as a free standing candidate available to whatever president would have her. I think she was hoping John Glenn given they were both spacey space buffs.
In going around the figurative Zoom room, it become clear that our stories were branching and interweaving and in no time, it seems, would encompass the world. A collective "scenarios basket" would be hugely encompassing, in any case, not that we had time to weave it then. Doug still had his main presentation to give.
Another of the guys present (Bonnie was there too -- not all the guys were guys) was in fact a descendent of a Great Pirate, literally. Bucky's prose poetry was redolent with pirate imagery, in connection with his maritime-anchored historical narrative, stretching back to Venetian times and before.
I mention Venetian in part to justify including my AI graphic above, from my Project Renaissance collection.
