Sunday, December 8, 2013

Speaking of Stories ~ Stories by Alice Munro

Roughly three weeks ago, I learned that Center Stage Theater in downtown Santa Barbara was offering two live dramatic reading events featuring stories written by Alice Munro, the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. 

When I learned about Center Stage Theater's 'Speaking of Stories ~ Stories by Alice Munro' event, I couldn't resist buying two matinee tickets for this afternoon's performance, which I attended with my husband!

Three stories were selected and read from Alice Munro's book titled 'Dear Life'. The stories selected from 'Dear Life' are as follows, along well as the name of the person who read the story during today's event.

Anne Guynn reading 'Corrie'
Sylvia Short reading 'In Sight of the Lake'

Pamela Dillman Haskell reading 'To Reach Japan'

As far as the dramatic readers go, I felt Anne Guynn read 'Corrie' to swiftly and this made it kind of difficult to follow the story. I felt there just wasn't enough time for pausing/transitioning from each scene throughout the story. This made it difficult to fully follow the storyline.

Sylvia Short did and excellent job reading 'In Sight of the Lake'. This was the story my husband & I enjoyed listening to the most out of the three Alice Munro stories presented today.

Pamela Dillman Haskell did a nice dramatic reading of 'To Reach Japan'.

Listening to the three stories read this afternoon, was my first experience with anything written by Alice Munro. I thought the stories were good. But I wasn't W-O-W-E-D by any of them. Yes, I know that Alice Munro is the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, but I wasn't overly impressed with the stories I heard earlier today. My husband even found himself tuning out the stories and thinking about other things. Believe me when I write that he enjoys attending these type of events just as much as I do. 

Maybe, I was expecting too much from today's performance?? One tends to hold Nobel Laureate's to a higher standard or one automatically assumes that they'll love what a Nobel Laureate has written... Or maybe I simply find Alice Munro's writing isn't for me. Who can say really. I just don't plan to seek out anything else written by Alice Munro at this point in time.

Have you read anything by Alice Munro? What do you think of her writing?

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