By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on January 27, 2018
SELDOM in my life do I experience the rollercoaster of emotions that I did on Friday night, watching Great Southern locals brave the stage for the Barefaced Stories event at the Albany Entertainment Centre.
Barefaced Stories gave a platform for amateur storytellers to test their talent for words and wow, did they exceed expectations.
The crowd was laughing one moment and shedding tears the next, clinging on to every word each of the performers spoke.
ABC presenter Andrea Gibbs was a great host, keeping the audience on a cliff-hanger whenever she could by revealing snippets of her own story.
The talent of local performers was outstanding and boy, did they have some stories to tell.
The audience learned of the bra-ing of local politician signs during the 2017 elections, and how the idea was carried out between a young lady and her partners-in-crime.
Another powerful story revealed how indigenous people were discriminated against in a small country town 30 years ago, and how the local hotel owner created a darts night specifically for indigenous people at his hotel.
For me, the outstanding performance of the night was from a mother of four.
She told the audience of her worst Christmas, when gastro went through her family and led to her baby daughter’s horrifying experience with gastro-induced seizures.
Seeing this woman tell her story, holding back tears and evidently going back to that night in her mind, had the audience hanging on every word.
You could have heard a pin drop.
I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the unique format of Barefaced Stories, but it was one of the best shows of local talent I have seen in this style of story-telling.
Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for its return.
