“Ekos vayonya tst,” recited Klondo the great poet speaking in her native language — er, “Klondo.” Then came the immediate translation into English: “I was so terrified, I thought I was toast.”
The crowd leaned forward on its seats and chuckled. The actors continued, first in Klondo, a totally made up gibberish of a language: “Snya dosn playa.”
The immediate translation followed, also utterly made up: “Mr. Ghost, I’m pleased to meet you.”
The simultaneously hilarious and silly theater game riveted a crowd of 50 kids and their caregivers at the International Festival Of Arts & Ideas Family Stage on the southern tip of the Green near Chapel Street Wednesday afternoon.
Allan Appel Photo
In a “this is your life” sequence, six-year-old Vivian Smith was to ring a bell if Valpey acted out an accurate scene from her life, and honk if a false one.
And the idea — improvising a scene in a ghost story in the language of poetry — came right from the audience, who also participated in the dramatic action on the tented stage.
Actors Mike Durkin, Laura Livingston, Laura Valpey, and Kristie Wortman comprise Freestyle Rep, an improvisational theater company that teaches elements of theater, like learning to listen to language, all in the framework of a sporting event.
It’s not exactly the theater equivalent of slam poetry, and it’s certainly not time for Sophocles or Aeschylus, whose plays competed in dramatic competitions in ancient Greece, to step aside either.
Wortman with kid volunteer actors Liv Street, Henry Mead, and Thomas Boynton-Comba.
Durkin has named the show Theatersports. On Wednesday, a Team Blue faced off against a Team Red in each theater bout. The audience voted with a show of hands for who won each bout. The audience was also in effect voting for itself, because all the theater bouts were designed to engage participation. Kids volunteered their ideas, overcoming shyness to toddle on up on stage and act out those idea.
Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to hear Durkin and Valpey (Team Blue) enact a scene of two people mowing the lawn. Each time the bell rings, the actor must switch from English to basic gibberish, and then back again. Team Blue prevailed over Livingston’s and Wortman’s ghost story told in Klondo.
You learn that language is at heart sound. Then comes meaning, and then, yes, there it goes again. But wait — aren’t the actors also somehow communicating physically? So some meaning is being imparted even if you don’t understand the words? A lot was going on, and it was a hoot as well.
But before Durkin and Valpey began arguing about mowing the lawn, Durkin asked the audience what the relationship between the two people was. An answer came from a small upraised hand.
Make them brother and sister, suggested eight-year-old Thomas Boynton-Coma (pictured), a student at John C. Daniels School, where his mom also works as a Spanish language tutor.
And so the hilarious arguing began, but with yet another theater lesson taught — a biggy — that two people on a stage interacting with each other, regardless of the languages they employ, must have a relationship for there to be drama. It sounds simple, but many playwrights out there never attended a Freestyle Rep performance, or have forgotten the lesson.
How To Say Yes
Although the performance for young audiences is about improvisation, Durkin said it teaches values as well. Chief among those are “saying yes” — that is, “yes” to any suggestion from the audience and running with it, but also “yes” to teamwork in making his partner on the stage look good first, before himself.
The culminating bout between Team Blue and Team Red gave a shout out to Arts & Ideas, as its theme was to improvise a scene having to do with a great idea or event.
Team Red acted out Benjamin Franklin flying his kite to show that lightning was indeed electricity. Kid volunteers looked inside actor Livingston’s pocket for keys and other stuff Franklin needed. As Franklin was bent out of shape in the potentially crazy and deadly situation, everyone laughed, the grown-ups more than the kids.
Now it was Team Blue’s turn. Someone had suggested a scene about a “a beautiful princess and a walking shark from Egypt.”
No problem, said Durkin. He tried to leave out the Egyptian part, but audience members held him to it.
Student actor Omari Cunningham as the walking shark, with Valpey.
Halfway through the skit he called for a kid to be the walking shark who comes onstage.
Wexler-Grant student Omari Cunningham was happy to comply. As Durkin narrated the tale improvisationally, Omari, as the shark, held up his, er, fins, and the story ran to its conclusion.
After the voting, Team Blue, by virtue of winning the main bout, prevailed and was declared champ.
But with so much being taught and so much fun and laughter, the entire audience was the winner.
Durkin said that he and his troupe, whose work is based on theater education concepts from Canadian director Keith Johnstone, performs regularly at schools all over the Tri-State Area.
It’s highly unlikely that “The Walking Shark Out of Egypt” will ever be seen after Wednesday afternoon. The plays that the actors and their audience collaborators come up with “have never been done before, and it’ll never be done again,” Durkin said.
