Spirited performance: Burke Theater Guild delights audience with ghostly folktales

The typical Coffee at the Museum program is topical and informative. This one was just plain fun.

The Burke Theater Guild carried audience members at the History Museum of Burke County’s monthly event back in time and into mystic realms with a reader’s theater program entitled “In a Spirited State – North Carolina Folk Tales.”

For more than an hour, six expert storytellers and performers captivated the crowd with their animated recounting of Western North Carolina folk tales, most of them in a spooky vein.

One of the actors, Dr. Kelly S. Taylor of Valdese, wrote the play, which intertwined humor, music, and some good old-fashioned chills.

A steady stream of quirky, self-produced sound effects and vocal treatments that ranged from a posh Victorian accent to the clamoring of terrified hillbillies, gave the performance the feel of a real-time broadcast from the classic days of live radio.

The sounds of wailing hound dogs, howling winter winds, ominous footfalls, crowing roosters, braying donkeys, and moaning oxen were just part of the soundtrack that brought the play to life.

Director Phyllis Garrison said WNC has its own inimitable brand of folklore, passed down through generations from our forebears.

Garrison said she hoped to “share a little of that wonderful diversity of imagination with you. Some of these stories will make you laugh, and some will make you shiver, while others may bring a tear to your eye.

“We hope all will cause you to reflect on the great gift of creative wisdom that is our collective inheritance from untold prior generations of storytellers of the Old North State.”

Together, Garrison, Mike Chandler, William Keith Watts, Martha Watts, Kathy Cozort, and Taylor kicked off the familiar first tale — the legend of Tom Dula — with a pitch-perfect version of the Wilkes County murder ballad.

Next came “Grandfather Mountain Gold,” a supernatural narrative about a nervous mountaineer (William Keith Watts) who spars with a spectral presence for possession of a hidden treasure. Spoiler alert: The ghost wins.

“The Bride and Groom of Mt. Pisgah” recounted the sad saga of two young lovers whose wedded bliss is eternally postponed when they die in a sudden snowstorm.

The program continued with a uniquely Appalachian art form, the “Jack Tale,” with its happy-go-lucky hero who somehow always saves the day. This particular version was a Blue Ridge rendition of “The Bremen Town Musicians,” with a ragtag cavalcade of hapless animal characters.

“The Call of the Nunnehi” — the fabled “little people” of Cherokee cosmology — featured Cozort’s eerie autoharp leitmotif announcing the arrival of the mysterious beings.

Next, Taylor’s take on the venerable urban legend about a phantom hitchhiker who disappears when she reaches her destination uses High Point as its setting.

“The Headless Host” showcased Taylor’s fittingly garish performance as a congenial, well-mannered, decapitated spirit. Garrison said a group of grade-school kids who recently saw the show strongly indicated it was their favorite segment.

Finally, Cozort’s autoharp and the cast’s solid harmonies punctuated a tale of “The Wayfaring Stranger.” In it, an enigmatic, traveling carpenter heals a child’s affliction and helps reconcile a feud between neighbors before disappearing, never to be seen again.

“From time immemorial, storytelling has served as a powerful medium for bringing together families and communities,” said Garrison in closing.

“We hope that today, these stories have reminded you of the many precious gifts of creative genius bequeathed to us by countless generations of storytellers of (entire group speaking) The Old North State.”