Cornucopia at the Actors Workshop Studio in NoHo

It Began With a Bang & Ended With a Yell:
The Shared Experience from the Cornucopia

One weekend each month at the Actors Workshop Studio a rotating group of performance artists, actors, musicians, storytellers, poets, and those interested in the art form all converge on the Actors Workshop Studio to share their stories, their frustrations, their sadness, their fears, their rage, their voice and their song in a grand convergence of the time honored art form of storytelling; an art-form that seems to have been silenced by the ceaseless noise in a world that is too busy, too loud, too reckless, and too narrow.

Don’t tell that to the performers at the Actors Workshop Studio though; these artists are so vibrant and full of life that their tale just comes bursting out at you; like a peaceful cable car ride brought to a screeching halt by a screaming child or an awkward teen shown the door by a resistant father who isn’t hearing the right message. The performers I saw this past Sunday all had such an endearing heart; lasting longer than the non-biodegradable tuna fish cans that were drawn into likeness with eating a thermometer; an endurance that is just as visceral as the embarrassment brought on by a proud father at a graduation.

This was just a small sampling of the stories that were on display this most recent go around in North Hollywood; the performers each had their individual strengths, their own warmth, their own passions, and their own comical insights into the idiosyncrasies of our whirring modern age.

As we all filtered into this tiny, tiny room with a smattering of fold out chairs, benches, stools, and what appeared to be former assembly hall seats that had been smashed together to form this story space. The room immediately brought forward the idea that this might be some kind of a silent auction or show of hands vote of some kind, but no performance of any kind! Don’t be dismayed by the ramshackle room as the performance buzzing around the fringe of this venue was set to pop. I looked around and was reassured by all the happily smiling people who had all made their reservations well ahead of schedule; of course they must have as the sign on the door as we entered said “Cornucopia is SOLD OUT.”

Situated around us were a whole host of hand drums, shakers, wood blocks, and tambourines which were a welcome sight to me; I’d once been an experienced percussionist all throughout my former years and dreamed of going on to a career before fate intervened and cut that idea from the limb. What I’d learned from that episode more than 10 years ago, I’d lost somewhere along the way; but this knowledge and these facts were reintroduced through the stories of these five people who helped to show me the true spirit of the afternoon.

The event began with Mike DeMenno who was the owner of all these random drum pieces. He had a story for us about how he went on a camping adventure, all alone. Not fifty miles from his own front door he’d traveled with some camping equipment and his own drums and as dusk fell over his campsite he pulled out his drums and began playing. All alone in the wilderness the beat, beat, beat of his own drum music attracted curious children one night and ended up bringing together the whole campground as so many others surrounded his tent and the driving force of the music and danced and laughed and played. We all were instructed to play the instruments which were before us and the uplifting spirit of Mr. DeMenno’s story coupled with the driving beat of the drum really set the day off with a bang!

Padraic Keohane was next up. His story was one which had obviously haunted him for some time; the story of his first date in high school. His was the tale of a confused younger version of himself who hadn’t known he was confused when he’d arrived to pick the girl up, but was very sure he understood abundantly less and more a few hours later. While his story, which might have been better suited for another audience, veered off into the fantastical at points it was still entertaining.

Mr. Keohane was followed by the svelte and beautiful Tanya Alexander. Her story was more of a sprawling, visceral, rhyming, epic, long form poem than straight up story. Careful ears were rewarded though as this was the tale of a girl who was brought up being taught to use her brain to succeed but had been shown that her body gets her much further, indeed! Told as a bridge from the past to the future between the poetic styling of a Ginsberg or Kerouac to the modern day rhymes of Q-Tip, Ms. Alexander is towards the front down a path and a new way of communication and understanding. Down deep though, her poem and her story revisits universal themes which are at once timeless and powerful. One is reminded of the challenging work of Ralph Ellison more than seventy years past and his character without a name.

When an actor is able to be so entrenched in the psyche of their character, it is an awe inspiring experience. Honesty in performance is rare but the teetering edge that Vicki Juditz walked was absolutely brilliant. Ms. Juditz’s story was our own story; that of the consumption of man and how horrifying it really one day will be. Much of her story was ‘light;’ that is, one could see, as most of the audience did, how what she was saying was funny. However, her absolute commitment to what she was saying; her pathos, made this reviewer a little uneasy at times; I’d wanted to lose myself in the absolute grandiosity of her words, but in a way I also knew better.

Finally was the jovial Michael D. McCarty. He shared the story of his daughter which is a story many of us have lived through, participated in, overcome, and been able to reflect back on or share ourselves. His daughter was a rebellious teen and her cathartic tale of going through the ringer, taking life’s challenges, and overcoming them on her own (no doubt, with a whole lot of love from her dear old dad) brought forth the Michael D. McCarty hyena yell; at her graduation and to close the show.

I walked away from the Actors Workshop Studio a little jarred at the random presentation of these equally, divergently powerful pieces; it was then that I realized the point of this art form; the fact that Padrick’s date went so horribly and Mike had that lonesome camping trip; the fact that Tanya came to her own epiphany; the fact that Vicki’s still dealing with her own demons; the fact that Michael is able to wake up every morning and sing out loud; the point wasn’t a single idea but the combined installation of these stories into the basket that is our modern day impression of a Cornucopia.

These are a bunch of strangers, thrust into a room with a bunch of other strangers, all trying to navigate the course that life has plotted out for them with one simple message; everyone gets redirected, misdirected, makes mistakes, trips and fall, gets embarrassed, gets infuriated, loses something they thought they could never be without but gains the knowledge, the wisdom, the courage, the experience, and the fortitude to pick themselves up, pick another road, and continue forward. So if you’ve ever been confused, heartbroken, wanted to laugh so hard that you cried or cried until you just laughed; if you’re confused at the way that people behave, if you’ve ever lost your own self in your own way on your own path then you will, no doubt, find some solace in the stories of these random few who came to tell you they too know the feeling that only you’ve known. And they’ve survived.

Cornucopia plays one weekend per month at the Actors Workout Studio; 4735 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, 91602; (818) 506-3903. All inquiries about Cornucopia can be directed to host Ellen Switkes at theellenloop@hotmail.com. Become friends at www.myspace.com/cornucopiastorytelling