On January 14th, the Emmys were held, so like all good millennials I watched the speech highlights on Tik Tok the next day. It’s been two months and I cannot get a quote out of my head:
“I’m so grateful to be able to participate in this tradition of “storytelling as medicine”, with which we demonstrate our devotion to each other, because as Wendell Berry says, it all turns on affection” - Nick Offerman accepting his Emmy for his appearance on "The Last of Us".
Often we speak of why we tell stories, and why ‘this’ story at ‘this’ time, but we talk about stories and the power of them broadly less often. Or maybe I did until this earworm found it’s way into my brain a few months ago. We tell stories in many ways. In songs, and poems. On TV and on stage. We tell them to each other over lunch and come home to our loved ones and say “You’ll never guess what happened to me today!”... but why?
To see and be seen.
The medicine happens when we see, hear and feel the story that our souls NEEDED.
We want to see ourselves reflected in stories, to see each other and know that we aren’t alone. If we were the only ones who ever locked ourselves out of our apartment, the world would feel a lot scarier. We can be moved to feel angry, or sad or scared, and then go home to our own bed where none of that is actually happening. We can be challenged with new ideas, and different views, and travel the world and never leave our couch. We can be connected across space, time and cultures. Everybody knows Hamlet.
Everybody. Knows. Hamlet.
We want to see ourselves reflected in stories, to see each other and know that we aren’t alone.
The “It all turns on affection” quote from Berry refers to his essay of the same name. In it he tells us the story of how the tobacco industry starved his grandparents’ farm. After watching his grandfather take their season’s tobacco crop to market, his grandfather returned with no money. The industrialization of crop production and large corporations being able to outprice smaller producers wiped small time farmers from the map.
Berry pleads with us to turn away from constant growth and industrialization and begs for a return of connection to the land and to each other. To take care of that connection. The world turns on our connection and affection for each other and our land.
The world turns on our connection and affection for each other and our land.
We remember our connection to our land, home and to our ancestors by telling their stories. Often we speak of catharsis in storytelling, and of course being moved to feel things during a good play or movie IS cathartic. The medicine happens when we see, hear and feel the story that our souls NEEDED.
We tell stories from our soul, demanding to be let out, so our little piece of soul can be seen by others. We hope those pieces match, or mirror other pieces out there. We seek stories that our soul can see itself in, so we connect ourselves to the world we’re in.
This is the magic of making sure everyone's story has a place, because they all should. For after all, it all turns on affection.
SHAUNA AKKERMANS is an Artistic Associate for 9th Hour Theatre Company, and was part of the directing team for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2023) and the audio drama Beauty Will Save the World (2024).