Late in 2019 the You Must Remember This podcast did a six episode series on Disney’s Song of the South, breaking down not only the errors that were made in creating the film, but also the original history of the stories themselves -- as written down by white Southern journalist Joel Chandler Harris in 1881.
Not the first example of white appropriation of African heritage, and certainly not the last. I have wondered if the folk tales of Br’ers Rabbit, Bear, Fox and all the rest will or can ever be re-appropriated by African American artists and storytellers, and incorporated into our great storytelling tradition.
In this play, the playwright himself travels back in time to meet the real Uncle Remus -- of course, there was no “real” Uncle Remus, but through a wild and wily adventure the Aaron Coleman of the play discovers the truths concealed in the fiction, and an even more important truth about himself, in the end literally (in the literary sense) reclaiming the narrative for future generations.
Isaac stirringly traces a century of Korean history with characters who recount ancient folks tales to console, explain, or simply draw attention away from the grief and hardship which has affected the Korean peninsula and its people. His storytelling is magical, candid, and very funny.
Adapting international folk tales for the stage, I have discovered that the same plots and characters have presented themselves across the years and across the globe. One story of a virtuous girl who receives a calabash which is (surprisingly) full of good things, prompts her sister to demand a calabash which is (not surprisingly) full of bad things is pretty much the same basic outline as Red Onion, White Garlic.
But Isaac stops to ask, what is the lesson? What are we teaching our children? Be passive and good things will come to you? Strive for achievement and you deserve punishment? Never do the same thing twice?
There’s also the lesson that good only defeats evil at a price, and that is hard to argue with.
Many are aware that folk tales, like those from which popular Disney “princess” films are based, do not necessarily have happy endings. They can be violent horror stories, which arguably teach a child valuable lessons. Lessons like, “do what I say or someone out there will murder you.”
What was most interesting about this book, however, was that the Brothers Grimm did not write these tales, they collected them, just as ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax collected recordings of American folk music. Documentation, not creation.
I have had the great fortune and opportunity to create and adapt tales for the stage at Talespinner Children’s Theatre. One of the things I have noticed about folk tales from around the world are their great similarity, and also their differences.
Every culture, it would seem, has a story of a young woman or girl who is either cast out or runs away, in fear for her life. This is a story found not only in tales like Snow White, but repeated in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. These two version, and others, formed the basis for my play Rosalynde & The Falcon.
The Indonesian folk tale Bawang Merah Bawang Putih is a story much like Cinderella, with a put-upon step-child eventually receiving great reward for her patience, even as her mean step-mother and step-sister get their comeuppance. This was the basis for my play Red Onion, White Garlic, though I took liberties with the story to make the sister allies rather than enemies.
Margi Herwald Zitelli & Sarah Bogomolny "Red Onion, White Garlic" (Talespinner Children's Theatre)
Moroccan culture also has many, many tales of young women and girls in peril,who are either punished for their bad decision making, or rewarded for their wisdom and cunning.
Like Grimm’s original tales, the Moroccan tales that I have read are a transcription of an oral tradition, and as such the tales do not necessarily have a complete, narrative arc or structure. They can go many different places, with characters and story lines being introduced and just as suddenly abandoned.
What I found most fascinating about Moroccan tales are the preponderance of ghouls. They are the bogeymen in these stories, not just as monsters, but as characters.
Talespinner artistic director Ali Garrigan introduced me to Abdelghani Kitab, a Moroccan musician and actor living in Cleveland, and we met several times over the past year over coffee to discuss Moroccan culture and folk tales. One afternoon he translated for me (from the French) a story that his grandmother used to tell him.
Here now, my simple retelling of this version of the story Haina, threads of which are found in my new play script, About a Ghoul.
Haina - or - The Girl Who Married the Ghoul Haina was a girl with long black hair, so long and soft that at night she would roll up her hair and use it as a pillow.
She had a wealthy father, whose dying wish was that she marry her cousin. Following the marriage, Haina found it strange that her new husband would depart for seven days, every seven days. What she did not know was that every night her husband would turn into a GHOUL, and that he would stay awake for an entire week, and then sleep for another, necessitating the lie that he was always traveling.
Now this ghoul would eat anything and everything. Each morning, when her husband was in residence, Haina noticed that they would lose another horse. Soon only her favorite horse remained. The horse pleaded with Haina to free him from his chains. She told her husband that the horse was ill, and only fed him rice and milk. The next time the ghoul departed (or rather, hid in sleep) the chains fell off the now much thinner horse, and the two of them, Haina and horse, made their escape.
Upon waking, the ghoul cried, “My horse ran away with my wife!” All who heard his cry laughed and mocked his folly.
Haina disguised herself as a talib or a holy man. They came to a city where they were warmly welcomed, though the children were suspicious. That night they peered through the window of the house in which the talib was staying to see him combing his long, black hair.
The children went to their mother to tell what they had seen. Their mother thought of a test to prove whether the talib was a man with long black hair, or a woman posing as a man. The next day they offered the talib a meal of food both spicy and sweet -- as it is well-known that women prefer sweet food and men prefer spicy food! The talib passed the first test by choosing the spicy dish.
But then the mother surprised the talib by telling him that their horse died during the night, and the talib broke down in tears. Mother reassured the talib that the horse was not dead -- but also that only a woman would cry over the death of a horse, and Haina admits her deception.
Charles Hargrave, Valerie C. Kilmer & Tim Keo "Rosalynde & The Falcon" (Talespinner Children's Theatre)
The story continues, and for a moment it appears that things are going to end well for our heroine. The eldest of the children, a young man, thinks Haina is very beautiful and they agree to marry. But when her first husband, the ghoul, learns of her second match -- and that Haina is pregnant with twins -- he spreads an ugly rumor that she is about to give birth to two dogs.
Her new husband hears the rumor and flies into a rage. He orders Haina’s hands to be cut off and the newborn twins be put into cages. In the end all deceptions are revealed, lovers and family are reconciled and the site of Haina’s punishment becomes a shrine.
Elements of the first part of the tale of Haina forms the basis for my adaptation About a Ghoul. No one in my play is maimed (though some are shamed.) In America we have a tendency to shield children from monsters and harsh punishments in the tales we tell, and maybe this is for best, or maybe not. There are monsters in the world, and harsh punishments.
I was concerned that a title such as “The Girl Who Married a Ghoul” might scare away parents, but also that they should know that we will have ghoul characters. As you can see, our idea of what a ghoul is in the West, whatever that is, is only one example. Through the many tales I read I saw all kind of ghouls, outsiders who live by a different set of laws, several of them capable of sympathy and kindness.
Some have asked if the title About a Ghoul is a play on the title of the film About a Boy, and the answer is no. Because the title of the novel upon which the film is based, About a Boy, is inspired by the title of the song About a Girl by Nirvana, and Nirvana is never mentioned in the film About a Boy.
Two weeks ago I shared some background on my previous work for Talespinner Children's Theatre, Rosalynde & The Falcon. That was the same day my new work, Red Onion, White Garlic opened at TCT, and folks in the Cleveland area still have two weeks to catching it. In fact, tonight (Friday, April 21) is a pay-what-you-can performance, so bring the entire family. Bring grandma.
This play is a collection of Indonesian folktales, strung together into one continuous narrative. These tales include The Golden Snail and The King of the Parakeets among others, including that from which the play derives its title.
The original version of Red Onion, White Garlic (Bawang Putih Bawang Merah in Malay, literally "shallots and garlic") follows a familiar narrative of a young girl oppressed by her "evil" stepmother and stepsister.
The young girl, Bawang Putih (White Garlic) must do all the housework while her stepmother dotes on her own child, Bawang Merah (Red Onion). Virtue is eventually rewarded when Bawang Putih is awarded a pumpkin full of jewels for doing a good turn for the local sorceress. When Bawang Merah is sent by her mother to get another one, she behaves with entitlement and is rewarded with a pumpkin full of snakes and scorpions.
This tale did not compel me, however, and anyway, Rosalynde & The Falcon is already a story about an oppressed stepchild. And is it not time to be done with the "wicked stepmother" narrative all together? How many of us are or know people who are members of blended families?
So the challenge I set for myself was to tell a new version of the tale, one in which these sisters love each other and take care of each other, and I looked to those closest to me for example. In doing so, I noticed the marked age difference that can often exist between step-siblings, and how family economics can affect the way each person was raised as children.
Then there's the whole Gen X vs. Millennial dynamic, make of that what you will.
Finally, I noted how our central tale centers entirely on characters who are women; mother, daughters, female witches. As my tale expanded, I realized that all of the characters were going to be women. The opportunity for a male character never presented itself.
The Talespinner production is downright gorgeous, each of the five actors in beautiful kebaya and hijab, and performing wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry.
