The first time I saw this in action was watching The Talespinner, Dany Feldman, telling at a MileHi Con. She told stories to a roomful of kids who's parents were working the Con. There was an intimacy to her telling that I hadn't seen before.
I went back every year to the Con to watch her tell, because even though when I expressed awe at her skill she would humbly say, "Well, I've known them all for years," I knew there was much more to her performance than just familiarity. Dany told with real magic.
What she did was a mix of great vivid storytelling and improv. Her telling of the stories was an interactive dance with whatever was happening in the moment. She folded in what the kids were wearing, what they said, anything that happened effortlessly into the story she was telling, bringing the audience into the story and weaving it around them. I was stunned by her style and thought about it a lot. I hadn't seen other tellers do it quite the same way. It was a transformation of reality. Would I ever be able to learn such a thing?
I started my theater training as a teenager doing as many school plays as I could and doing summer stock as well. In theater the 4th wall is essential. It seals in the viability of the imaginary world you're creating, protecting the illusion, keeping the dream real for the audience. When Jerry Lewis broke the 4th wall in film it was considered a moment of great comic genius; when Phoebe Waller-Bridge does in in Fleabag, it's one of her most beloved beats.
When I first found a storytelling circle and stood up to tell, I was keeping the 4th wall intact. After a time I did notice that some tellers did it differently. At the RMS festival I saw Cheri Karo Schwartz and Paul Taylor addressing members of the audience as they told, making the experience much more intimate. But for me the most startling example of it was Dany.
Since becoming a Spellbinder and regularly telling in classes, I've begun to find my way. There are tellers who believe in surveillance, in making the kids pay attention through forms of coercion, but I agree with Hannah B. Harvey who authored the Great Courses class in Storytelling, that if the audience is becoming distracted it's often because they need more from the teller.
You can't do that with a story when it's walled off. The way to give more is to shatter that 4th wall, bring the audience in and wrap the other three around them.
