The stories have to be true, they have to be unscripted, and they have to be told within an allotted timeframe. RICHARD FITZPATRICKvisits The Moth, New York's live storytelling phenomenon that attracts ordinary people and celebs
IS THERE A more enjoyable communal experience than the unfolding of a good story? There’s hardly an older group social pastime. In Ireland, we tend to settle around a table in a kitchen or a pub for the delivery of our stories. Growing up in Georgia in the US, poet and novelist George Dawes Green used to gather with his cohorts on his friend Wanda’s porch for the telling of their yarns.
Having washed up in New York, he hankered after those interminable balmy summer evenings. So, in 1997, he invited a group of friends around to his apartment for a storytelling session. It was the start of something. Soon, the happening was forced to move to an outside venue. Twelve years later, The Moth – named, metaphorically, after the moths that were attracted to the light through a hole in the screen of Wanda’s porch – is one of the sensations of New York’s cultural life.
Every gathering The Moth has hosted has sold out without advertising. It has spawned a cottage industry. As a not-for-profit organisation, it employs six people and a battalion of volunteers. Since it started podcasting stories from its archive, iTunes has been releasing 600,000 downloads a month. Its roadshow has toured the major cities of the US – indeed, it has a satellite club in Los Angeles – and it has visited countries as diverse as Australia and Tajikistan. Its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August has already sold out.
The format is straightforward: the stories have to be true, they have to be unscripted, and they have to be told within an allotted timeframe. There are two strands to the storytelling sessions. First, during open-mic StorySlam nights, which are held on the first Monday of the month, the public, whose names are drawn from a hat, are invited to tell five-minute stories based on a pre-announced theme, such as “Love Hurts” or “The Wild” or “Jobs”. I dropped in on one of these sessions, themed “Weddings”, which was held at the Bitter End, the famous cavernous music venue in Greenwich Village. A queue had formed around the block 75 minutes before showtime. It was seven bucks to get in. The MC for the evening was Sara Barron, a writer with a machete mouth who kept the crowd howling with laughter at her ribald tales, largely concerning her sex life.
Of the 10 stories delivered, some were (inevitably, given the theme) a bit mawkish, but there were three or four gems. The winner on the night, according to three sets of judges randomly chosen from the crowd who wielded scorecards like those at a skating rink, was Ophira Eisenberg’s account of her marriage in City Hall. A stand-up comic by trade, she will go forward to the GrandSlam final, storytelling’s Super Bowl, later in the year.
Second, there are curated shows in which The Moth handpicks stories from the city, courtesy of a tip-off from a volunteer, one perhaps unearthed in a magazine or word that a celebrity might be willing to share a story. Over the years, The Moth has, for example, given a stage to glitterati such as George Plimpton, Christopher Hitchens, Annie Proulx, Rosie O’Donnell, Salman Rushdie, Moby, Sam Shepard and John Turturro.
‘IT’S INTERESTING – YOU never quite know when you meet somebody whether or not they will turn out to be a really powerful raconteur,” says Dawes Green, author of The Juror, which was turned into a Demi Moore movie, and the recently published Ravens, his first novel in 13 years, which follows two grifters who muscle in on a lottery win. “I would have thought that Malcolm Gladwell, because he has that kind of, oh, scientific mind, I would have suspected that he would not be a good storyteller – and yet he’s turned out to be one of our most brilliant and original raconteurs.
Actress Lili Taylor’s description of the realisation that her therapist of 12 years is suffering from a rare condition in which he obsesses and tries unsuccessfully to amputate his leg is achingly funny.
There is a titillating, voyeuristic element to hearing stories from well-known personalities, but The Moth’s most captivating tales are drawn from the streets. There are regulars such as Steve Osborne, a former New York City cop and born storyteller, who talks like he’s chewing tobacco; “Hungry” Charles Hardy, the hot-dog-eating champion; and Elna Baker, a cute-looking 28-year-old Mormon who is known as “the principled virgin” because, although she loves men, she doesn’t believe in sex before marriage.
Invariably, the best stories are the ones in which the storyteller’s ego takes a back seat. “Usually the thing that needs to be brought out by people is vulnerability,” says Dawes Green. “The stories that are the great successes at The Moth are the ones where the storyteller presents himself generally as the crazy one surrounded by good people who are trying to help him – but then we’ll get some celebrities who will come in to tell stories and they wanna tell a story in which they are surrounded by crazy people and it’s how they manage to survive. Those are the stories that don’t work well at The Moth.”
THE CLUB’S STORYTELLERS have come from the most varied and unusual backgrounds, and include a retired pickpocket, an astronaut, an owl expert and a voodoo priestess. The Moth has yet to have a problem with decorum.
“We’ve never censored anyone,” says Dawes Green, allowing himself a chortle, “but after you’ve been on stage for 10 or 11 minutes, the violin plays. The first time it plays softly, and then, a minute or two later, it comes back in and plays a little louder. If the storyteller continues to go on, then we play louder and louder. We did have a famous incident where the timekeeper/musician wasn’t being aggressive enough – the story had gone on too long – so I just walked up to the musician and yelled ‘Play!’ ”
There are, it is said, eight million stories in the naked city. Many of them are from the Irish. Gabriel Byrne has headlined at The Moth. Last year's winner of the GrandSlam was Jim O'Grady, an Irish-American who writes for the New York Times. Malachy McCourt has regaled audiences with tales of his tribulations, while his brother, the Pulitzer Prize winner who died last weekend, was one of the club's favourites.
“Frank McCourt was a great example of a powerful storyteller,” says Dawes Green. “I come from the South and I think that our storytelling ability comes from our Scots-Irish roots. There’s something about Gaelic tradition. I don’t mean to be racist, but it really is true that the Irish are the best storytellers in the world, without question. And Frank McCourt was such an amazing example because his stories were very quiet and simple and seductive and mysterious. You didn’t realise how powerful the story was until he was near the end, and then he brings all these threads together in these amazing emotional masterpieces. He was one of the greatest raconteurs in the world.”
TRUE AND UNSCRIPTED TALES OF THE CITY
“I said: Well, if the president wants to see me, he can walk his presidential ass right back into this room and ask me himself. Well, about 60 seconds later, the presidential ass showed up.
– Joe Lockhart, former press secretary to Bill Clinton
“My mother had to go out of town a couple of times and he would take me on dates with other women, and he would say: If you tell your mother, Im gonna kick your ass. But I thought it was great – this guy is so cool. I remember I rolled joints for him for this other girl.
– Ethan Hawke, recalling "adventures" with his mothers boyfriend when he was a seven-year-old boy
“I stood there in the lobby and I remember seeing my mother come down this long hallway toward me . . . and then she recognised who it was, and she turned and walked away again . . . Two and a half weeks later, a black funeral wreath was delivered to me at my office with a note that said, ‘In memory of our son’.
– Jeffrey Ridell, after coming out to his parents
“She looked at me, removed her oxygen mask and said, ‘Do you love me enough to trade places?’.”
– James Braly
“On that first night, as I was walking up to him, I knew he was dead. He had a bullet-hole in his chest and he wasn’t breathing.”
– Jahara Gonzales, on her first shift as an emergency medical worker