How to Listen Like a Storyteller at Confabulation

Live storytelling asks for a different kind of attention than a podcast, a stand-up set or a polished theatre production. The person on stage is often sharing a memory in real time, shaping meaning as they speak and responding to the energy in the room. At Confabulation, that immediacy is central: true, unscripted stories unfold in front of an audience, with humour, vulnerability and surprise often arriving together.

For an Australian audience, the format may feel familiar in spirit but distinct in setting. We have strong traditions of personal storytelling through community radio, spoken-word nights, comedy rooms and festivals such as Melbourne International Comedy Festival or Brisbane Festival. Confabulation brings that same appetite for lived experience to Montreal, where a story can move between cultural identity, family, relationships, change and the texture of city life.

Listening well does not mean sitting silently and trying to guess the “right” emotional response. It means staying curious, noticing how a story is built, and allowing the teller to remain the expert on their own experience. The following guide can help you arrive at MainLine Theatre ready to hear the details beneath the punchlines and the human connection beneath the plot.

Listening mode	What to notice	Helpful audience response
Attentive	Details, pauses and changes in tone	Stay present and avoid distractions
Curious	Contradictions, motives and unanswered questions	Let the story unfold before judging
Generous	Vulnerability and uncertainty	Laugh, react and listen without taking over
Reflective	What the experience stirs in you	Notice your response without making it the story
Story-aware	Structure, rhythm and turning points	Appreciate both the craft and the person

Arrive ready for the room

Confabulation is a monthly live storytelling series hosted by actor and comedian Matt Goldberg. Its setting at MainLine Theatre matters because the room is shared by teller and audience in a way that a screen cannot reproduce. You are close enough to hear a breath, a laugh that arrives late or a sentence being revised halfway through. Those small signals are part of the performance.

Give yourself time to settle before the stories begin. Montreal’s evening pace can involve a metro connection, a walk through busy streets or a last-minute stop for food, while an Australian visitor may be adjusting to a different neighbourhood, weather pattern or seasonal rhythm. Arriving unhurried helps you switch from travel mode into listening mode.

Pay what you can admission also shapes the atmosphere. The audience is not necessarily made up of people who attend formal theatre every month; it may include regulars, first-time visitors, friends of performers and people looking for an affordable cultural night out. That mixture is valuable. Treat the room as a community gathering rather than a test of cultural knowledge.

Listen for the person beneath the premise

A storyteller may begin with a neat premise: an awkward date, a family argument, a move across borders or an encounter that went wrong. The premise is only the doorway. Listen for the person making choices inside the situation. What did they want at the time? What did they misunderstand? Which detail still seems vivid years later?

Personal stories often contain more than one version of the truth. Someone can be funny and hurt, proud and embarrassed, certain and confused within the same few minutes. Resist the urge to reduce the teller to a lesson or personality type. A story about migration is not automatically a story about resilience; a story about romance is not simply advice about relationships.

This kind of listening is useful in Australian settings too. A colleague describing a move from Perth to Melbourne, a family gathering shaped by different cultural expectations, or an uncomfortable moment on a Sydney train may sound ordinary at first. Close attention reveals the private stakes: belonging, status, fear of disappointing someone or the desire to be seen accurately.

Follow the shape of an unscripted story

True storytelling is not the same as a raw diary entry. Even when a performance is unscripted, the teller is selecting moments, arranging emphasis and deciding what to leave out. Notice how the story moves from setup to complication, how a small detail returns later, or how a joke gives the audience permission to stay with something difficult.

Do not worry about identifying a perfect beginning, middle and end. Live stories can circle back, pause, contradict themselves or finish with a question rather than a tidy resolution. A long silence may signal uncertainty, emotion or a deliberate change of pace. A burst of laughter may release tension without cancelling the seriousness underneath.

The audience helps shape this rhythm. Laughter, attentive quiet and audible recognition tell the storyteller how the room is receiving the material. That does not mean manufacturing a reaction. It means responding naturally while leaving enough space for the teller to hear their own next thought. In a small theatre, restraint can be as supportive as enthusiastic applause.

Let humour and vulnerability coexist

Confabulation’s stories may be funny, but humour is rarely the whole point. A joke can be a coping mechanism, a way to expose an absurd social rule or a bridge into an emotionally difficult memory. Listen to what the joke protects, reveals or makes possible. The laugh may be the surface; the shift that follows may carry the deeper meaning.

Australian audiences often recognise this balance. We have a strong affection for dry understatement, self-deprecation and the kind of social humour heard in a suburban kitchen, a community club or a comedy room after work. Yet a familiar comic style should not encourage assumptions about the person on stage. Shared humour creates connection, but it does not give the audience permission to decide what the teller must feel.

When a story becomes vulnerable, avoid treating the moment as a performance failure. A stumble, a shaky voice or a change in eye contact may be part of the truth of the telling. You do not need to rescue the speaker with noise or force a solemn silence. Stay attentive, allow the story to continue at its own pace, and respond when the room naturally moves with it.

Notice culture without turning people into examples

Montreal’s cultural life gives Confabulation a particular setting. Stories may carry traces of language, neighbourhood, ancestry, migration, religion, class or the experience of living between communities. These details can expand your understanding, but they should not be treated as representatives of an entire group.

Listen to how the teller defines their own world. If a performer mentions bilingual life, do not assume every French- or English-speaking experience in Montreal follows the same pattern. If a story involves family tradition, notice the specific family rather than turning it into a broad statement about culture. Precision is more respectful than confident generalisation.

This is especially useful for Australians hearing stories from places that may be unfamiliar. A reference to the Plateau, the Metro, winter, a local institution or a Montreal social custom may invite comparison with Fitzroy, Newtown, West End or another place you know. Make the comparison privately, then return to the teller’s context. The goal is connection, not translation into an Australian equivalent.

Listening across cultures also involves accepting that some references will remain partly opaque. You can understand the emotional stakes without catching every local detail. Curiosity is helpful; interruption, correction or unsolicited explanation usually shifts attention away from the person telling the story.

Keep your response generous and grounded

A strong audience response begins with attention but continues after the event. You may remember a particular image, recognise a pattern from your own life or feel unsettled by a perspective you had not considered. Let that response develop before announcing it. Immediate identification can be warm, yet it can also crowd out the original story.

If you speak with a performer afterwards, be specific and respectful. Mention a detail that stayed with you, a turn in the story or the feeling it created. Avoid demanding more personal information, comparing their experience with a larger tragedy, or telling them how they should have handled the situation. A storyteller can share a true experience without offering every part of themselves for discussion.

The same principle applies online. A moving performance may inspire a post, review or message, but public sharing should preserve the teller’s dignity and context. Do not quote a vulnerable moment as though it were a slogan. Do not assume that because an event is open to the public, every personal detail belongs everywhere. Thoughtful audiences understand that public storytelling still contains private boundaries.

For visitors from Australia, this may be a useful contrast with the quick social exchange common at a local gig. A “great set” can be kind, but a precise observation often feels more meaningful. The performer might have spent weeks carrying a memory, revising its shape and deciding whether it was ready for the room. Your response can acknowledge the craft without pretending to know the whole life behind it.

Carry the listening beyond the theatre

The most lasting benefit of a storytelling night is often the change in attention it creates elsewhere. After hearing several people make sense of ordinary or difficult experiences, you may notice narrative details in daily conversation: the pause before a friend answers, the oddly specific object in a family anecdote, or the moment someone turns a complaint into a confession.

Try bringing that awareness into ordinary listening without treating every conversation as material. Storytellers are not raw content for your own entertainment. Ask yourself what you are hearing and what the other person may need: recognition, space, practical help or simply the chance to finish a sentence without being redirected.

Confabulation offers a reminder that community is built through particular voices rather than broad slogans. A monthly gathering at MainLine Theatre can make room for humour, uncertainty, cultural difference and shared recognition without requiring every story to resolve neatly. The audience’s task is modest but important: be present, remain open to revision, and allow the teller’s meaning to arrive in its own time.

Before the lights go down, put your phone away, listen for the detail that changes the story, laugh when laughter is invited, and leave room for what you do not yet understand. That is the practical habit of listening like a storyteller.