by Rob Callahan, photos by Cole Sarar
It’s December 12th and I’m settling in at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage as the Rockstar Storytellers come together for their monthly showcase of tale-telling talents. We are all about to delve deeply into the dark, magical realm of Myth and Fairy Tale.
Host Joseph Scrimshaw creeps onto the scene and then, with all the seriousness of a chupacabra attack, presents a mythical account of the many tall tales surrounding the mysterious troupe of wordsmiths, each of which then come before us to present their own account of the unsolved mysteries and secrets of the Universe:
Courtney McLean tells the story of The Mirage, a secret fantasy world entered only by those in the know and deserving, its entrance in the mall as otherwise inaccessible as is Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross. Within the dark, sensual world of the Mirage, our heroine Claire’s holiday shopping frustrations melt away as she finds herself surrounded and pampered by a harem of regretted exes, each of them a distant enough part of her past that only fond memories remain, specifically that each of them was the man with whom she’d had the best sex of her life. This story is told in just the sort of frantic, raunchy style we’ve come to love and expect from McLean, and those in the mood to hear of the near triumphs of a mildly self-deprecating and wildly sexual heroine will not be disappointed.
philip andrew bennett low(ercase mandatory) takes the spotlight with a story titled And That’s How I Saved Christmas, tweaking his trademark high-verse tenor and epic adventure tone to the gravelly growl of a hard boiled noir story about a private eye teaming up with Jesus to help find a kidnapped Santa Claus. The cadence and moodiness of the story fit with low’s voice and vision as does a glove to its respective hand, and the ridiculousness and hilarity upon which low so often builds his worlds lacks not in the interactions between a gruff, grumpy detective and the misplaced Messiah who just wants to please him in this abridged fantasy epic.
Allegra Lingo, masterful melder of mythology and modernity, begins with a comically cynical look into the roots of Christmas tradition. She then transitions into a reading of Danish holiday folklore – a traditional tale of yuletide trolls – which comes out strangely and rather humorously sexual, in part a likely result of translation and in part due to the inherent weirdness of the myth. Upon a foundation of established silliness, she builds her own poetic translation of The Icelandic Yule Lads, adding topical references to the traditional story of a group of oddly-labelled trolls. With names like Meat-Hook, Sausage-Swiper and Sheep-Cote Clod, and each with a persona not unlike a modern figure from our own headlines, hilarity can’t help but ensue.
In Frankly Untrue, Ben San Del recalls some local lore from the small town of Downer, MN. As legend has it, a notoriously reckless teenager named Tom had fallen to his death in the middle of a failed attempt to spray paint graffiti onto the town water tower. His work, presumably unfinished at the time of his demise, simply proclaimed for all to see and ponder: “Tom was” When the story’s hero learns that the otherwise poignant tale is a complete fabrication, he sets out on a lifelong quest to renounce all myth, only to find that, no matter how hard he tries, he still ends up believing in the occasional old wives’ tale.
Allison Broeren tells the final structured story of the night, recalling her relationship with a lonely eight-year-old boy being consumed by cancer, and his imaginary friend, Astro the dog. Laying out goofy, light-hearted traipsings alongside moments that tug at heartstrings and jerk the occasional tear, Broeren assembles a complex collage of deep emotion and senseless whimsey and parlays nonsense into a forceful and moving piece about hope, life and the inevitable grim outcome of it all.
The night is rounded off by Joseph Scrimshaw teaming up with San Del and Lingo to read a surprisingly cohesive narrative strung together from spam out of Scrimshaw’s inbox, and with guest performances by singer/songwriter Pablo and the surreal mime storytellers Dean Hatton and Kirsten Stephens.
The Myths and Fairy Tales installment of the Rockstar Storytellers’ Bookshelf series is now finished, relegated to exist only within the winks and whispers of those who swear they were there, and that they saw it all happen with their own eyes, or at least heard all about it from a guy who was totally not making this up.
