Being a doctor means hearing stories all day long. Attentive listening and real understanding of your patients’ tales of worry and woe, signs and symptoms is the heart of the matter, according to Rebecca Hoffman.
“In my line of business it’s all about stories,” she said. “Our lives are all about stories.”
Hoffman is a private family-practice physician based in Salmon Creek. But she’s also a longtime devotee of stories. Before she became a doctor, Hoffman worked on “visual storytelling” as a video producer, she said. And long before that — ever since she was a kid — she’s always been involved with theater and acting and storytelling, she said.
These days, live storytelling has become a respected and popular art form via radio shows like NPR’s “The Moth” and performance venues like Portland’s “Back Fence PDX.” Battle Ground’s ongoing storytelling series is named after a different part of the homestead: not the back fence but “The Front Porch.” And the Vancouver Community Library recently launched its own series called “Off The Page.”
Now comes Magenta Theater’s third storytelling series. It’s called “The Edge,” and Hoffman is its director and storytelling coach. “The Edge” is headed for the downtown theater’s spiffy new digs on April 1. Eight or nine storytellers will bare their souls with true tales relating to that infamous date; the unifying theme for this performance will be “foolishness,” Hoffman said.
Which ought to make for some really fun and funny — but also sad and serious — considerations of human behavior. “We get every kind of story you can imagine,” she said.
Heroes and darlings
“There are so many ways to tell a story,” Hoffman said, but usually a successful story will trace what mythology scholar Joseph Campbell once called “the hero’s journey.” It needs a logical structure — a beginning, a middle and an ending. It needs a main character — a “hero” — who faces conflict, difficulty, hurdles. In the end that hero — hopefully triumphant but maybe tragic — will have learned or grown or changed in some important way.
That’s the fill-in-the-blanks outline of nearly every story you’ve ever known, from “The Odyssey” to “Gone With the Wind” and sitcoms to “Star Wars.” But there’s still a little more to it than that.
Hoffman helps her storytellers find the recurring symbols and themes and details — she calls them “benchmarks” — that give their stories focus and power. Which means that she must also help them recognize what really matters and what doesn’t make the cut, she said.
Amateur storytellers unearthing autobiographical tales may be a little too enamored of each and every slice of memory, she said. “One thing that can be difficult, but really is essential, is helping storytellers identify what is extraneous,” she said — even though removing beloved people and things can feel like “murdering your darlings.”
“It is hard but in the end they usually discover their stories are much stronger for it,” Hoffman said. Killing off some of your sweeties is also essential because “The Edge” has a time limit; with eight or nine storytellers all taking turns in a single evening, their tales need to stay focused and moving forward. Things cannot wander sideways or grow shaggy.
When they’re getting ready for a performance, Hoffman and her storytellers get together and share their stories over and over again — revising and revising some more, she said. They also learn about using their bodies and voices and projecting confidence onstage.
“It’s really wonderful to hear someone who is afraid to tell their story, who is nervous, who has something they cannot put words to … shape their story and speak with confidence,” she said.
One other thing, Hoffman added: The very best stories aren’t slight anecdotes or jokes. They matter.
“It’s something that comes from deep within yourself,” she said. “We want to tell the stories that must be told.”
“The Edge” is set for 7:30 p.m. April 1 (during the First Friday Art Walk) at Magenta Theater, 1108 Main St. Tickets are $5 in advance or $6 at the door. Visit www.magentatheater.com.
Another “Edge” is already set for July 22, and Hoffman said she’s eager to enlist storytelling newbies. If you’re interested, she recommends you check out the April 1 show to get a sense of what it’s like. You’ll be able to sign up for the next round then and there.
