Sharing the Gift of Gab

Antonio Sacre remembers vividly the first time he saw a professional storyteller in action. At the time, Sacre was a 23-year-old aspiring actor visiting a Chicago festival.

“I saw this one man sitting on a stool, telling a story that was actually quite boring,” he recalls. “But people of all ages were enthralled just by listening to him. A bunch of 3-year-olds were giggling so hard that they were crying. There was a cross-generational excitement in the air that was new to me. You don’t find that in the theater or the movies.”

Ten years later, Sacre has become a well-established professional storyteller. He travels around the country, hired by festivals and colleges to tell stories about his life growing up in a bicultural environment, the son of a Cuban father and an Irish American mother.

Storytelling is certainly an old-fashioned proposition in this day and age, when consumers are confronted with a dizzying variety of choices when it comes to entertainment. Still, the ages-old format refuses to die.

The third-annual edition of Village of Tales, a four-day festival devoted to the art of the well-told story, begins today in Ojai.

The Beverly Hills Public Library routinely presents programs with some of the best tellers in the country. And in November, Los Angeles will experience the premiere of its very own international festival, organized by DreamShapers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and sharing of storytelling.

“There’s nothing more powerful than a good story,” says Brian Bemel, president of Performances to Grow On, the organization behind Village of Tales. “And we don’t really listen to stories anymore. Everybody’s busy watching television or talking to each other on a computer. We’ve distanced ourselves from an art form that’s primal and allows you to connect to other people.”

Hebe Lein, a psychologist, occasionally uses narrative therapy as a healing technique. “Stories are part of our cultural identity,” Lein says. “We love stories because they take us back to our childhood and calm our anxieties. In most tales, problems are resolved in a magical way.”

It seems bizarre, even unrealistic, to expect storytelling to become a popular format when entertainment is all about the pounding razzle-dazzle of digital media. Why listen to an ordinary person telling a story when you can easily indulge in a frantic overdose of violent video games, sexy music videos and trashy reality shows?

“It’s easy to be lured by the seduction and excitement of modern technology,” Sacre agrees. “But storytelling gives you the kind of connection that you don’t get from television or the Internet. The teller of a story can see you and react accordingly. By listening to him, you become part of the story. There’s something very magical about that.”

Storytelling has also become quite a sophisticated art form, incorporating music, dance and elaborate props, elements that help bring the stories to life.

“The problem is that people don’t really know what a storyteller is,” Bemel says. “They think it’s just somebody reading a book. They don’t know how powerful and theatrical it can be. When you’re in the presence of a really good teller, you forget that you’re even in the audience and that there’s people around you.”

Interestingly, children and teens--the kind of demographic that you would expect to be particularly dismissive of storytellers--are vital parts of these events. “This year, we have 1,200 kids coming to our first performance, and the second one is almost sold out,” Bemel says. “Even though the kids have not been exposed to the format, their teachers know the value of it. And those who have attended always want to come back.”

“Even seventh- and eighth-graders love my stories,” Sacre adds. “I’ve told stories to kids in jail, to gang members, and then again to rich kids who go to expensive boarding schools. You gotta have faith in your craft.

“If you tell a good story, they’ll listen.”

In the end, the key to the endurance of storytelling might lie in its ritualistic aspect and in the healing power of the communal experience it offers. We become one as we sit under the stars in deep concentration, visualizing the hypnotic story that is unfolding in front of us.

“If the connection is there, you begin to approach the essence of what being human is all about,” Sacre says. “Listening to someone’s story is like giving him a beautiful gift. It’s very hard to hate someone once you’ve listened to his story.”

Village of Tales, Ojai Storytelling Festival, Ojai. Today through Sunday.

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Locations vary depending on the event. Weekend passes and tickets for individual events can be purchased by phone or online. Information: (805) 646-8907. Web page: https://ptgo.org/village.htm