For generations, the heart of Bethlehem, Pa., was steel. When the
blue flame went out at the last steel factory five years ago, the
town wanted to commemorate its steelworkers by leaving behind more
than just factory silhouettes.
So they brought storyteller Jay O'Callahan to town.
Making several trips from his home base in Marshfield, Mass., Mr.
O'Callahan talked with steelworkers, men at the union hall, women
in the Slovak church, relatives, and Bethlehem Steel Corp. management.
For three years, he took tours, leafed through photo albums, sat
in kitchens, and stood in backyards overlooking the steel works.
Acting as part investigator and part novelist, he gradually came
to understand what the community calls The Steel. And through one
immigrant family's story, he wove the steel into a yarn.
In September, O'Callahan returned to Bethlehem for the Steel Festival
and gave the townsfolk back their story, "Pouring the Sun."
"The whole thing, the whole struggle was there, and in such
a moving way that everyone could connect to it," says Bridget
George, the theater producer who had initially invited O'Callahan
to create the story.
"He captured the essence of the lives of people who lived on the
south side of Bethlehem -- the physical description of the neighborhood
was laced into the story. You could see Hayes Street and see the
church spires," says Deborah Sacarakis, director of programs at
Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University, which commissioned the
story.
"So many people came up to me and offered their thanks for the event
because it honored their contribution to the community as steelworkers," she says.
O'Callahan has more than two decades of storytelling experience.
While vacationing in Nova Scotia, he listened to residents describing
life during World War II. He absorbed their stories and wove one
of his own.
Since then, O'Callahan has been approached by other groups wanting
him to preserve their pasts in a performance. He has told stories
on the stages of New York's Lincoln Center and London's National
Theatre, and his pieces have been aired on National Public Radio.
A commissioned story costs from $2,000 to $30,000 and takes from
one month to three years to produce, depending on the length and
scope. Stories can celebrate an event, a time, a city, or a single
family member. These differ from family tales, which usually come
out as snippets. With a crafted story, he says, "You get a fuller
story, not as an anecdote but a sense of 'Who is this man, and why?' "
O'Callahan's presence in Bethlehem led him to more than just the
creation of "Pouring the Sun." "In pockets across the Lehigh Valley,
wherever Jay went, even after he left, people would keep sharing
their stories," Ms. Sacarakis says. "The same thing happened at
the performances -- people would say how many memories it triggered,
and would tell them."
O'Callahan initially found scores of stories he could have focused
on. After two years of interviews, he settled on his central character,
an immigrant woman who was no loner living but whose husband and
son had worked in the industry. O'Callahan tells the story as Ludvika
Waldony, sitting at the kitchen table at her 65th birthday party
and sharing the events of her life.
For more than an hour, the audience travels with 18-year-old Ludvika
from Poland to Bethlehem and walks alongside her as she meets Fritz,
who will become her husband, and builds a new life with him and
her children.
They build a big house and take in boarders. The Depression hits,
and the matriarch feeds the family from the garden she creates in
the backyard. Fritz, who adores playing Chopin on the piano, gets
three fingers cut off in a factory accident. His devastation melts
into alcoholism.
Tragedies strike the family: Ludvika's youngest son becomes a union
activist and during a strike is clubbed by policeman. While home
from college, the eldest son takes a one-day job and is killed in
a truck accident.
"I wanted someone to represent the immigrant journey as well as
the steel," O'Callahan says. "They are the people who built the
country, and we say that, but we don't know it. If we have stories
where we meet them and see them, then for the first time we have
a sense of who built this country and on whose shoulders we stand.
June 21, 2000 Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor
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