As the audience in Lyman Hall sat in silent anticipation for storyteller Odds Bodkin to weave his tales of the supernatural, three students from Bodkin’s home state of New Hampshire already knew what to expect.

‘Odds Bodkin is a local legend where I’m from,’ said Alex Keenan, a sophomore television, radio and film major. ‘I’ve seen him since fifth grade. He used to tell stories at the local library.’

Bodkins, an award-winning musician and wordsmith who has spoken at the White House twice, recited frightful stories Monday night for ‘Halloween Tales of Horror.’  No stranger to Syracuse University, Bodkin has visited the campus once before to tell Halloween tales.

Dennis Horten, a freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and also from New Hampshire, was thrilled to see Bodkin at SU.

‘This guy can tell awesome stories,’ Horten said. ‘He does classics like ‘Beowulf’ and actually makes them interesting to listen to.’

Although fliers around campus advertised the Department of Recreation Services-sponsored event, other members of the audience were not exactly sure what to expect from the performance. Anne Krengel, an undeclared sophomore at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said she came to the event wondering how spooky a one-man act could actually be.

Bodkin greeted the small audience gathered in a dimly lit lecture room with a message about his unique brand of storytelling as a modern-day bard.

‘You are all the cinematographers,’ Bodkin said to the audience. ‘It’s up to you to take the characters, words and music I offer, spin them in your mind’s eye, and visualize the tales I am about to tell you.’

Bodkin took his place at the front of the lecture room, surrounded by a microphone, two acoustic guitars, a harp and an eerie backdrop of a luminescent moon rising over a dark-lit forest.

After strumming a couple of chords, Bodkin entered into his first tale, an ancient Inuit myth about an arranged marriage gone fatally awry. Demonstrating his acoustic guitar chops, the storyteller kept the audience in rapt suspense with self-produced sound effects. Bodkins provided the sounds of a brisk ocean wind, the gurgling of water in a kayak and the voices for every character, which ranged from a high falsetto for the story’s tragic heroine and a booming roar for her father.

‘I never script my stories,’ Bodkin said. ‘I rely on mental imagery to keep my place in the story. The voices just come naturally as the story progresses.’

After only a brief pause to take a drink from his water bottle, Bodkin segued into a spooky Western tale. Bodkin adapted the sudden story change with a definitive twang while sinking his voice into a drawl.       

The story, about a train engineer whose haunting past catches up with him, was the most warmly received by the audience. Bodkin made use of sharp facial expressions and dynamic volume shifts in his voice to catch the audience’s attention.

‘I haven’t played ‘The Phantom Train’ for about 10 years,’ he said when asked about the story. ‘I hoped I still could do the train-chugging sound and get the strumming just right.’

For his last story, an Irish yarn entitled ‘Spring Water,’ Bodkin surprised the audience by simultaneously playing his harp and speaking with an authentic Irish accent.

‘I taught myself to play both the guitar and the harp,’ Bodkin said. ‘When I’m telling a story, playing music is a bit like jazz. I just improvise to fit the mood of whatever is going on in the plot, or how the characters feel.’

Bodkin’s three suspenseful tales clocked in at just under an hour and a half, and they were met with applause from audience members, no matter what state they came from.

‘I’m really glad that now everyone knows how good he is,’ said Kenneth Jones, a sophomore television, radio and film major and New Hampshire native. ‘He brings his stories to life. It’s definitely a great way to get into the Halloween spirit.’

ervanreg@syr.edu

Published on October 25, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Erik: ervanrhe@syr.edu | @therealvandyman