Chaste White & Blush Red
Beware the Ides of February, lust is in the air
M: For Mature Listeners
One-man show puts love center stage By Tony Kiss ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR published: January 20, 2006
ASHEVILLE - Valentine's Day is still down the road, but love really knows no season. And so storyteller David Novak sets the romantic stage with his oneman show "Chaste White & Blush Red," at the cozy N.C. Stage Company theater, a perfect place for this type of performance.
It's not a traditional play, although there are many characters and it's told over two acts. Novak calls it a "concert," and for about 90 minutes he spins fables and tales of love. It's a fascinating and very effective production and one of the more unusual theater shows we've seen lately.
Novak, who wrote the piece, can really hold an audience's attention. He glides through his work with seeming ease and a very conversational delivery, taking the listener happily along through ancient fables of yore, famous fairy tales and memories of his own childhood.
What holds it all together is love. Until we know another, how can we know ourselves, he asks. It's a question worth pondering.
The stage is simply dressed with red and white flower petals scattered across the small black floor. The only prop is a small red-dressed table filled with flowers and apples (which come in handy in act two).
Novak opens with the story of the sculptor Pygmalion, cold as the stone that he carves, and how he transforms a block of marble into the figure of a woman who eventually touches his heart. Later we meet Snow White and Rose Red, who embrace a great bear who comes calling to their forest home, and who isn't what he seems. Novak recalls childhood games in which he recovers a treasure chest containing its own surprising secrets.
Two of his best pieces are a retelling of Cinderella, and the life of the Greek heroine Atalanta, who becomes the world's fastest runner - but can she outpace love itself?
Novak connects the stories and illustrates each piece through voices, movement and sounds (clapping, stomping).
Grab someone you love - romantically, platonically, whatever - and see this show.
Storyteller David Novak entertains full house at PAC Erin Klitzke Grand Valley Lanthorn
It's not every day that you hear a telling of "Sleeping Beauty" as a limerick. The patrons of storyteller David Novak on Saturday night did.
David Novak is a world-renowned storyteller who came to Grand Valley State University at the behest of GVSU professor Karen Libman, who teaches a new storytelling course here at Grand Valley. Libman said she saw him at "numerous festivals" and eventually convinced him to come to GVSU to perform.
Novak's show, which started at 7:30 p.m. for a standing-room only crowd at the PAC, featured retellings of many classic tales and renditions of myth and legend.
Among the pieces Novak performed were the tale of Snow White and Rose Red, a story from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Atalanta, a retelling of "The Little Cinder Girl," the story of Orpheus and Euridice, and a version of "Sleeping Beauty" in dactylic hexameter. Also included were a story of Novak's childhood in Florida and the story of Sterling the Salt Shaker.
Novak brought a huge stage presence and a wonderful sense of humor to the stage for his performance. But Novak had a message for everyone when he got on the stage. He wanted people to think about his stories and think about all stories. Novak created magic on the stage in the weaving of his tales. In addition to his recent performance at Grand Valley, Novak has performed at the National Storytelling Festival, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Imagineering, the Disney Institute and many other places during his long career.
"As a storyteller," Novak said, "I can integrate my many areas of interest and expertise. My work has grown from explorations in mime and movement, character, voice, and classical text to the spontaneity and intimacy of the shared story. The theatre is my tradition and it is evident in my style. Yet I am not interested in merely 'acting out' the story, but in telling. Every story I tell has been through the filter of my imagination and carries a bit of my heart." In addition to giving his audience Saturday night a piece of his heart, Novak gave them all a bit of wisdom - a paradox - as his parting words: "Until we know ourselves, how can we hope to know another, but until we know another, how can we hope to know ourselves?"
