Gail Anglin and Tim Lips, performers from the Ottawa Storytelling Festival, recount their tales at Rasuptin’s Folk Café, an avant-garde hangout on Bronson Avenue. The café will continue hosting storytellers until the end of March.
For those interested in a good yarn, the best tales from the 2007 Ottawa Storytelling Festival are getting a second showcase throughout March.
Every Sunday evening until the end of March, the “Festival Reprise” series at Rasputin’s Folk Café on Bronson Avenue will feature an act previously performed at the 2007 festival in November.
“A lot of people didn’t see (some of the performances),” café owner Dean Verger explained.
“Festivals tend to parallel book their stages, which means several performances could be happening simultaneously.”
That means audiences often ended up missing more performers than they saw, he said.
Rasputin’s is attempting to solve that problem.
On March 2, Ottawa storytellers Gail Anglin and Tom Lips re-performed “Caution: Men at Work,” a set of songs and stories that tied into the festival’s larger “Risky Business” theme about dangerous male jobs.
The tiny restaurant, which seats only 40 people, was packed with fans, acquaintances, and fellow storytellers before the show.
At 7 p.m., Rasputin’s wrinkled table cloths and scuffed-up walls seemed to disappear as Anglin and Lips drew their listeners into the songs and stories of working men across the globe.
American folk hero John Henry hammered his way out of Anglin’s voice and into the café’s attentive audience, who happily sang along with Anglin’s energetic version of a traditional John Henry folk song.
Lips helped his character Prince Viragi, a beautiful but rather lazy young man, learn a lesson about the value of hard work.
The crowd gasped and smiled as Lips described the three terrifying hags who used a cauldron to turn Viragi into a strong, calloused brick layer.
Verger, a storyteller himself, opened Rasputin’s Café in 1981, and has been hosting storytelling events like this one since 1994.
The material has been as varied as the performers themselves, he said.
“In any art form, as soon as a definition hits the table, there will always be people who strive to expand the definition past those limitations,” Verger said.
He listed the use of musical instruments and mime as two popular storytelling components.
Anglin and Lips both used acoustic guitars to augment their songs, but also harmonized with each other to create their engaging folk music.
Even Lips’ amusing song about a “particularly soul-destroying” underground parking lot attendant job had a soulful air that few in the audience could resist humming along to.
“His songwriting is some of the most evocative, emotional, touching music I’ve had the pleasure to listen to over the years,” Verger said.
Anglin and Lips said they were pleased with the performance.
Lips said he especially enjoyed the cozy audience, where he could feed off his listeners’ reactions.
“The story doesn’t really live until you’re telling it. The audience is hearing it, and you’re creating the story together,” he said.
Don and Carol Gilbert, long-time storytelling enthusiasts, travelled to Rasputin’s to hear Anglin and Lips a second time.
“We’ve heard some of the stories a couple of times, but it doesn’t take away,” Carol Gilbert said. “It’s always a little bit different.”
The show was perhaps even more altered than the Gilberts had expected.
“About half the set was the same,” Lips estimated. Both artists changed their main stories and some of their songs, Anglin explained.
But the switches didn’t seem to affect the performance’s captivating quality. The audience stayed for an encore of three songs, and most guests lingered after the final number to chat with the two local storytellers.
By the end of March, Rasputin’s will have hosted seven of last year’s 28 festival performances. Admission is $8.