OTTAWA STORYTELLERS AND 2WOMEN PRODUCTIONS’ CO-PRODUCTION OF THE ODYSSEY

A Review - Elinor Benjamin

National Treasure Jan Andrews with some of the participants

June 16 was Bloomsday, a day when literati gather in pubs around the world to read aloud James Joyce’s "Ulysses", a challenging, literary novel detailing the passage of one day in the life of Dublin resident, Leopold Bloom, in the early 20th century. By coincidence, the Ottawa Storytellers and 2Women Productions chose that day to present the epic of the original Ulysses, or Odysseus, created, most scholars agree, by a Greek poet named Homer. Homer’s Odyssey, written some four centuries after the events described, covers ten years in the life of a Bronze Age Greek hero on his way home from the Trojan War. It is rich in the language of a people steeped in oral literature, a people on the cusp of the written word, a people for whom a day or night spent listening to bards reciting stories aloud in metric poetry was the highest form of recreation. The stories of the one-eyed Cyclops, the witch Circe, who turns men into swine and the Sirens, whose songs lead men to doom, have resonated down the ages, infiltrating comic books, action movies, literature, poetry and popular culture in more ways than we know. At its core, however, it is the story of one man’s long return from a war to chaos in his kingdom. It is a universal tale. War-weary and homesick men and women continue to return from wars to find their "kingdoms" in disarray. Odysseus’s journey home was filled with detours, divine intervention, encounters with friendly strangers and venomous strangers, and a healthy serving of the fabulous, for "wily Odysseus" was, himself, a master tale-spinner. It is also story about hospitality and the abuse of hospitality, a value central to the ancients.

You might be tempted to think that turning off all connections to the modern world to sit in an intimate, darkened room from 10 am to 10:30 pm to listen to people telling a 3200 year-old story would be an painful and esoteric undertaking, but the near-capacity crowd gathered at the National Arts Center’s Fourth Stage in Ottawa were entranced from the opening sentence until the final word. The spirited discussions rising above the Greek music playing during the well-spaced breaks testified to the power of the telling and the tale. People new to the story fell under its spell as quickly as those, like myself, who have loved it for years. The warmly lit stage illuminated an evocative set of crossed spears, bronze helmets, a portion of Greek column, and a swath of red fabric on a rough wood backdrop. Small details in dress enhanced the effect of the set without the distraction of "costume".
Using only the power of imagination and the human voice, fueled by passion, eighteen storytellers brought the Bronze Age to the 21st century audience more vividly and authentically to life than any hitech visual wizardry. Artistic directors Jan Andrews and Jennifer Cayley of 2Women Productions have been working with this material for twenty years. Under their leadership, the eighteen storytellers, each well-known for their own work and varied styles , presented a unified vision of the story. Each teller brought something unique, but stayed true to Homer, bringing his rich language to life and achieving a narrative clarity which I, myself, had not grasped even after many readings over the years.. This could not have been achieved without careful editing (of the newer Rieu prose translation - Penguin) and a collective desire to honour the story above all. In presenting each set, Jan Andrews kept us on time, on the narrative track and full of anticipation for the adventures to come. The Greek ambassador, Eleftherios Aggelopoulos, took time from a busy schedule on the eve of Greek elections, to enjoy several sets and bring greetings. His thoughtful reflections on the universal themes in Homer and the current crisis at home brought both laughter and an acknowledgment of the seeming invariability of the human condition. Jan’s announcement of Greece’s soccer victory against Russia that day was a moment of lightness and certainly in the spirit of the games that preceded some of the feasts in The Odyssey.  I have been listening to storytellers for over 20 years. At festivals and concerts, it is the norm to listen to a variety of shorter stories that have been honed, sharpened and compressed to fit within the time constraints of busy programmes, but I love long stories. For me, the luxury of listening, uninterrupted, to one of the world’s most enduring and resonant stories over the course of a single day was an experience that will be hard to top. My own tiny "odyssey" to hear it was well rewarded. Would Odysseus and his companions have been baffled by the variety of monsters that inhabit modern airports? I am. Canada is blessed to have such a diversity of wonderful storytellers in its capital city. Here they are: Alan Shain, Anne Nagy, Daniel Kletke, Dean Verger, Ellis Lynn Duschenes, Gail Anglin, Jacques Falquet,  Jan Andrews, Jennifer Cayley, Katherine Grier, Kim Kilpatrick, Marie Bilodeau, Marta Singh, Mary Wiggin, Ruth Stewart-Verger, Sherri Yazdani, Tara Hartley and Tom Lips. 

Watch for them. See and hear them whenever you have a chance. The Ottawa Storytellers post their events at http://www.ottawastorytellers.ca/ ; 2Women Productions are at http://www.2wp.ca
Thank you to the sponsoring bodies who supported this beautiful production: The Ontario Arts Council, The City of Ottawa, Heritage Canada and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Thank you to the staff and volunteers who made it all flow so smoothly.