BWW Reviews: Storytellers Converge on Moth & Butterfly

In 1997, U.S. novelist George Dawes Green wanted to recreate the feeling of sultry evenings in his native Georgia where he and his friends told stories in the porch while winged-insects fluttered towards the light overhead. He founded The Moth: a troupe who regularly host storytelling nights across the United States, with an emphasis on telling tales that are true. Writer and performer Órla McGovern was attracted to its flare while living in Seattle. Two years ago, she and the Galway-based improvisers, the Spontaneous Theatre People, brought the model home with a twist.

With the sold-out crowd gathered within the bright-plaster walls of the Electric Garden venue, McGovern introduces the concept. While adding to Green's convergence of people and truth-telling, or 'Moth', stories, an allowance is made for fictional tales that may dazzle and transform instantly, as in the turns of a 'Butterfly'. For speakers preferring to avoid either category, a 'Free Fall' allows for stories that suspend reality, whether a folk story or a tall tale.

Some experienced players take to the microphone first, tackling the theme of the night: 'Leap of faith'. We hear of literal leaps (a woman's life-saving jump from a collapsed ledge, another's acid-trip from the roof of a car into the furrows of a potato field) and others that depart as far as to be an outer-body experience. Tales range from partying with Steven Berkoff to attempting Indiana Jones-style escapes.

When put on the stand, McGovern proves herself a bold improviser, cleverly pushing the dialogue towards cheekier but human heights. Also gifted are her collaborators. When Ionia Ní Chróinín and Zita Monahan perform a spontaneous Irish-English translation of a tale featuring fairies and gold-milking cows, what's lost in translation makes for comic hurdles for the performers to overcome.

By the end of the evening, first-timers are sharing their own experiences. Bringing to a close the opening weekend of the rejuvenated Galway Theatre Festival, a German man's story of his relocation to the Western city, and eventually that of his motorcycle, rings with reverence. Having found his way after getting lost in the English countryside, he describes his triumph as he rode over the Salmon Weir Bridge. It's exemplifiable of a trip that has not been made in vain, and furthermore a destination steeped in traditions of storytelling. Under the pink lights in Electric Garden, we're aware of several creatures that have been drawn to Moth & Butterfly.

For more information about Galway Theatre Festival, see their website.

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