Theatrical storyteller has unique way with words

Theatrical storyteller has unique way with words

By ANNE SHARP
NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

“I’m a man who loves to see a smiling face in this disjointed human race,” declares actor/play-wright Richardo Keens-Douglas during his one-man show “Once Upon An Island,” at Performance Network this weekend.

Keens-Douglas knows how to make smiles happen, and he demonstrates his gifts with consummate skill in “Once Upon An Island,” a series of semi-autobiographical, comic-poignant monologues.

It’s impossible to watch this exuberant young actor perform his special brand of “storytelling cabaret” without responding to his warmth and positive energy.

Like a sweet-natured Spalding Gray, or a Caribbean Garrison Keillor, Keens-Douglas melds the age-old pleasure of hearing a tale well told with the hipness that’s the obligatory calling card of the modem professional monologist.

“I’m a man who likes to speak his mind,” says Keens-Douglas. And he does, holding forth with material strongly flavored with his experiences as a transplanted native of the island of Grenada, now living in Canada. Keens-Douglas originally performed “Once Upon An Island” in various venues in Ontario. And although he’s added a little local color to please his Ann Arbor audiences (references to Briarwood, the Art Fair, etc.), the unique Canadian Caribbean experience is where he’s really coming from.

“Once Upon An Island” is about the joys and uneasinesses of living in two places at once -- down among the sheltering palms, and up in the Great White North -- with Keens-Douglas acting the parts of both the bemused traveler, and gracious tour guide.

Keens-Douglas sets the stage by speaking in a stylized version of his native Grenadian style of speech, what he calls “a trans-Caribbean dialect - a little bit of everything.” (An important bit of cultural self-assertion for the Afro-Caribbean Keens-Douglas, who, despite his mastery of “good English,” was allegedly dropped from the Stratford Festival acting company for being the wrong color for Shakespeare.)

Rather grandly, he asserts that “Papa God” has appointed him to bring people together, to start them talking and sharing.

Then, a bit more cozily, he states his real, mission: to bring us what his friends and family in the Caribbean call “Old Talk”: gossip, tall tales, juicy stories. He even gets us in on the act. “Come rain or come shine,” he calls out to us, prompting us to shout back our response (and we are expected to shout it; he even had it printed in the program so we wouldn’t forget it): “It’s Story Time!”

And Keens-Douglas drags everything but the kitchen sink into his Story Times. There’s a funny story about a cat who enters a beauty contest, shaggy dog tales about disastrous ski outings and airplane trips, ghost stories, an angry, sorrowful musical recitative about racism.

Keens-Douglas skips nimbly between the scenes and stories he sets up, one minute playing the village folktale-teller under the coconut palms, the next a polished, urbane stand-up comedian.

One of the simplest but rarest delights the theater has to offer is just a good story well told. That’s what Keens-Douglas offers in “Once Upon An Island,” and it’s a treat well worth seeking out.

"Once Upon An Island" continues at Performance Network, 408 W. Washington St., through Sunday. Show times are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 6:30 p.m. Sunday. For more information, contact the Network at 663-0681.