Tall Tales: Storyteller Karen Haas presents her rip-roaring,
rollicking, and down-right ridiculous tall tales.
Saturday, April 12, at 1:30 p.m.
I attended a live storytelling by Karen Haas at the Key Center branch of the Pierce County Library system. It was held on a Saturday afternoon on a beautiful day, which may explain that only 4 children and 4 adults attended.
I spoke with Karen and told her I was a student from the University of Washington currently taking a class in Storytelling. She told me she hoped I would have fun and then the stories, commenced.
The title of her storytelling was “Rip-roaring, Rollicking, and Down-right Ridiculous Tall Tales”. Her website is here.
Audience Awareness:
The four children that attended were the approximate ages of 4, 6, 8, and 9. She seems undaunted by the low turnout. The way she approached the telling was as if she were telling to a crowd of four or thirty. In other words, she gave us her “all” even though it was such a small group.
Format: Inclusion of audience or no?
She began the session asking if they kids knew what a “tall tale” was about. She let the kids guess and then emphasize that a tall tale was full of “exaggerations”. She defined exaggeration and gave a few examples. During the session while playing the guitar, the kids were asked to sing along with the “Little Old Lady that Swallowed a Spider” song. She also asked the kids to make the sounds of the animals Davey Crockett encountered during his travels.
Voice: Consistency, Conversational Style, Pacing
Karen used different voices for different characters in her stories. During the “Wide Mouth Toad” story she opened her mouth wide when the frog was talking. Her pacing was great. She told the story at a slow pace so she did not loose her audience. If however, Davey Crockett was riding down the river on a log, she picked up her pace. She paused for emphasis and she used full voice ranges. She also had a voice that projected throughout the room without being too loud.
Usage: Dialect, Grammar, etc.
When telling the story about Davey Crockett, she used a Tennessee accent. She used the slang form the era including “fur” meaning “for”, “this-a-here” for “this”, just a few examples. She also used very description language. For example, in describing the eyes of the panther that Davey encountered, she said they glowed like barbecue coals. When telling the Frog Story, she used her mouth to imitate a wide-mouth frog.
What types of stories they shared
Karen started with the story of Davey Crockett. Then while playing the guitar, she encouraged everyone to sing along with her the “The Little Ol’ Lady that Swallowed a Spider”. Then she told the story of the Wide-Mouth Frog who ate flies and then asked others in the pond what they ate. The conclusion comes when the frog asks the alligator what he eats who says “I eat wide-mouth frogs.”
What methods, props, music, and other elements they incorporated
All of Karen’s stories were from memory. She had a guitar and played music for the “Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”. She also moved around a lot to dramatize the story. She incorporated the audience several times during the performance including standup and asking us to follow her motions through the story. An example was looking far ahead with palm over eyes to spy the animal making noises in the woods. Jumping down from a log and running in place to catch up with the panther.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Her strengths were in her acting ability. She was fully involved with her stories. Her descriptions were clever and she tried to describe elements to the kids in terms of what they would understand. As I mentioned above describing the pather’s eyes like glowing barbecue coals. She was also great with her dialect depicted by a southern accent. She also used slang with fit the story. Examples of slang words she used was “I reckon”, “lookey here”, “hotter than a flap jack on a sizzling grill”.
I didn’t see any weaknesses. The kids and adults were engaged in her story and everyone fully participated – even the adults. I’m sorry the turnout was so low, but again it was one of those rare warm spring days.
Bibliography
Haas, Karen. “Living History Performer, Storyteller, Musician”
http://www.karenstoryteller.com/
Faulkner Keith, and Jonathan Lambert, The Wide-Mouth Frog: A Pop-up Book
(Dial; 1st edition, March 1, 1996), 16 pp.
Traditional Folk Song, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly (Cartwheel, August 1, 2001)
Board Book, 20 pp.
(I was not able to find a reference to the specific story of Davey Crockett as told by Karen, also the I’m Still Hungry story)
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