Three academics romp their way through mead-soaked Scandanavia.
Semi-opera noise ensues.
Hwæt!

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here some song from show.
and also big big zip file of the whole damn show.
just like how nine inch nails does it.

• grendel & mother
• hrothgar
• the battle
• ripped him up good
• grendel's death
• not only
• that was death
• passing

• WHOLE DAMN SHOW (zip file)

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"Shotgun Players' world premiere of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage is a breath of fresh air, both in terms of reclaiming the adventure from being strictly the province of scholars and as the most thoroughly enjoyable theatrical display I've seen yet this year.

A song-play created with New York's Banana Bag & Bodice, this Beowulf pits the heroic action, told largely in dazzling and often very funny song and dance, against the academic jargon of a panel of scholars. It's tempting to call it a rock opera in terms of its raucous energy, but Dave Malloy's music leans more toward enthrallingly bouncy cabaret numbers with some jazz, a little calyspo and rockabilly, and a whole lot of Kurt Weill.

...Beowulf's entrance is a masterpiece of bravado, boasting lunkishly in his dazzling song to "Mr. King Hrothgar, sir" that not only will he kill Grendel, but "I will shit on his back and piss on his ankle." Meanwhile the warriors gyrate on hands and knees chanting, "Horses and swords, oh my my my." At this point my jotted-down notes say, "That was fucking awesome."

A good deal of that awesomeness comes from the music, an impressive follow-up to Malloy's memorable score for Ten Red Hen's Clown Bible last year. Beowulf is packed with glee-enducing songs from the super-catchy "Welcome to our mead hall Heorot" to Grendel's mom's particularly Weillesque lament, to Beowulf's bouncy "I Ripped Him Up Good."

...This is epic storytelling, and the way it's presented needn't be high-tech but it does need to be larger than life. That's where Beowulf succeeds magnificently."
-Sam Hurwitt, East Bay Express


"Banana Bag and Bodice's brilliantly funny, muscular, and plain irresistible "songplay" is like the Bay Area landing of some marauding East Coast tribe of masterful miscreants. Actually, that's exactly what it is. Fans of the sharp and sardonic New York–based ensemble (frequent favorites at SF Fringe) may recognize a few tropes from past shows in the satirical academic panel (leading a discussion on the significance of the Beowulf legend for us laypersons) as well as the rock musical format overlaying it, but this is far from mere repetition. It's a vibrant collaborative venture — featuring the formidable talents and instincts of writer-performer Jason Craig, composer-performer Dave Malloy, director Rod Hipskind, and a deft cast of actors and musicians — playing at the very top of its game. Intellectual posturing and epic adventuring, baroque phrases and broken heads, severe looks and severed limbs — it's all an enthralling, time-compressing mishmash of art and violence. The gore of now and yore unfolds to heart-thumping beats, killer lyrics, deadpan cracked-pate humor, and lilting '40s harmonies across a canny set design (whose dynamic backdrop vaguely suggests an ancient starry lair or even a certain blood-drenched flag)."
-Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian


"In an act of theatrical heroism bold enough to rival Beowulf's fight with the fearsome monster Grendel, the ever-inventive New York– and San Francisco–based theater company Banana Bag and Bodice, in collaboration with Berkeley's Shotgun Players, has managed to wrestle the legend's mangled reputation from the ravenous jaws of academia. Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage provides the ideal antidote to anyone who ever had to suffer through stultifying lessons on "Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Tradition" in school...the group's gut-gripping new rock opera (or "SongPlay," to coin composer Dave Malloy's preferred descriptor for the piece) rages with an anarchic energy reminiscent of the most ardent anthems by Queen or Siouxsie and the Banshees. Yet despite restoring Beowulf to his rightful throne as pop icon extraordinaire, the genius of this production lies in acknowledging a puzzling paradox that threatens to dampen the show's fiery rebelliousness: that Beowulf wouldn't be the literary king that he is today if scholars hadn't given him his crown.

...Beowulf and his merry band rock out to Malloy's defiantly cacophonous musical score, which seamlessly blends an array of influences including Kurt Weill, klezmer, and the Clash. Writer and actor Jason Craig's first entrance as the titular hero, bursting through a white-paper screen in Mohawk and bovver boots to boast, "I will wrestle that man beast and best that whore stain/I will test man against monster and monster against thane," is concert stadium hyperbole. Low-hanging microphones allow performers to snarl out lyrics from crouching, crawling, and reclining positions or to dance and sing while swinging on the junglelike cables like monkeys. The ominous post-punk throb of a synthesized bass as Beowulf circles his prey whets our animal expectations for the battle that lies ahead..."
-Chloe Veltman, SF Weekly


"Old English epic meets jazzy art-rock and the zany theatricality of Banana Bag & Bodice in this exhilaratingly eclectic and comic Banana-Shotgun Players world premiere, a two-hour creative deconstruction and celebration of the oft-adapted ancient poem as written by Jason Craig (who plays Beowulf) with a terrific, eclectic score by bandleader and performer Dave Malloy.

There's nothing like a rock band to enliven a seminar on ancient Anglo-Saxon literature. It's even more entertaining when the members of a panel discussion on "Beowulf" begin to morph into the man-gobbling monsters the titular warrior must battle. And when the slaughtered victims are a two-person backup chorus of go-go-dancing warrior babes.

...a rewarding, rare look at what frequent San Francisco Fringe fave Banana can do with a full-length show...an often exhilarating popular culture romp through the epic that mocks, deconstructs and celebrates it at the same time.

Arch, effete scholar Christopher Kuckenbaker slithers from the panelists' pit and morphs into an apish-amphibious Grendel, greedily licking his chops over a bucket of "man-meat." Malloy wails the rock lament of the grungy-proud King Hrothgar, whose warriors are dying (literally) to fill Grendel's stomach - brightly supported, in song and mock-sexy dance by Anna Ishida and Shaye Troha in Kaibrina Buck's flea-market medieval costumes. The remarkable Jessica Jelliffe - Craig's co-artistic director and Banana co-founder - alternates between acerbic but shallow panelist and slithery, none-too-maternal sexuality as Grendel's comically formidable mother. Cameron Galloway anchors the show as a mousy academic before undergoing a striking transformation, part of which involves a dynamic rendition in the original Old English.

Craig is terrific as the brooding, humble-vain Beowulf, bellowing his warrior boast-raps or contemplating action-hero toys....he and Malloy have packed this "Beowulf" with theatrical verve as provocative as it is entertaining, with a score that draws on everything from blues and country to haunting echoes of Kurt Weill and Weimar cabaret - the rock rhythms subconsciously evoking the alliterative beats of the ancient epic."
-Robert Hurwitt, SF Chronicle


"Forget last year's craptastic half-live/half-animated Beowulf movie that put a tail on Angelina Jolie. Heck, you may even want to forget about reading the book. If you want to experience Beowulf - really experience the 1,000-year-old epic poem, head to Berkeley's Ashby Stage, where you'll dive into one of the most interesting and exciting shows currently on a Bay Area stage.

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage is original, surprising and strangely moving. The original aim of composer Dave Malloy was to create an opera, but what he and writer Jason Craig ended up with is something more interesting: a hurdy-gurdy rock musical that lives just on the other side of a Brecht-Weill beer hall. Malloy's engaging score is, like the show itself, both funny and serious. And unlike so many new musicals, it features music you actively want to listen to. You get roiling anthems like the opening 'Heorot' and angry heart-rippers such as 'Bring It' sung by a rampaging Grendel's Mother...There are sweet harmonies that recall 1940s swing, and then you get a duet called 'What Kind of a Face' sung between the warrior Beowulf (Craig) and King Hrothgar that sounds a little like Johnny Cash and June Carter flirting over the microphone.

...Part of what makes Beowulf so exciting is that it feels contemporary without straining itself to be hip. The aim seems to be the telling of a story and not the marketing of a performance art rock musical and all the wondrous personalities within it. There's a natural ferocity, humor and thoughtfulness in this show, and that's truly what makes this Beowulf howl."
-Chad Jones, Theater Dogs


"At a point where "Anything: The Musical" is pretty much the operative principle, "Beowulf" nonetheless raises eyebrows as obscurantist by pop-culture standards, nevermind the recent "performance capture" action pic. Making the most of that incongruity, "Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage" is a song-play that both depicts every English major's epic-poem scourge in clever rock opera terms and deconstructs its own deconstruction via mock academic panel analysis. A hit at Berkeley's Ashby Stage, this arresting, amusing whatsit is slated for transfer to New York's Henry Street Playhouse next March.

...delightfully, unpredictably quirky on all levels. Those include Malloy's score, which often sounds like indie-rock Kurt Weill but finds room for hints of klezmer, ramalama punk and near-normal showtune; adventuresome arrangements encompassing everything from dual trombones to whistling and musical saw; design elements that recall the Wooster Group's maxi-minimalism; plus severed-limb gore, audience wetting, toy action figures and a lot of periodic seminar-speak.

Nimbly handling various layers of deadpan irony and occasional flat-out jokiness, the cast's vocals are uniformly strong.

While a somewhat more rarefied, avant-garde beast than the likes of "Hedwig" and "Passing Strange," this rock musical is likewise more rock than traditional musical and as such has the makings of a cult (if not wildly commercial) fave."
-Dennis Harvey, Variety


"The legend of 'Beowulf' has roared back to life at Berkeley's Ashby Stage. Only here the heroic sixth-century Scandinavian warrior must fell not only the snarling beast Grendel but also a panel of academics holding forth on the Old English narrative poem from the safety of their ivory towers. The battle between art and its deconstruction rages at the center of this wildly inventive homage to the fable. Part funky rock opera, part tart Brechtian parable, the thoroughly visceral Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage is billed as a song-play...

Text, music and myth collide in an ingenious mosh of the medieval and the post-modern. A world premiere collaboration between fringe theater darling Banana Bag and Bodice and Berkeley's feisty Shotgun Players, this 'Beowulf' puts the bite back in the howling tale. Propelled by Dave Malloy's raucously primal score, Ron Hipskind's rebellious staging rescues a cornerstone of English literature from its butt-numbing canonical status. Banana Bag and Bodice lives up to its reputation for confounding aesthetic expectations with this Beowulf unplugged."
-Karen D'Souza, Mercury News


"...perhaps the most wildly anticipated theatrical collaboration of the season"
-Nicole Gluckstern, SF Bay Guardian

 

A Banana Bag & Bodice SongPlay
Produced by The Shotgun Players

May-June 2008
The Ashby Stage, Berkeley CA

Created by Banana Bag & Bodice
Directed by Rod Hipskind
Script by Jason Craig
Music by Dave Malloy
Dramaturgy by Mallory Catlett
Lighting Design by Miranda Hardy
Sound Design by Brendan West
Costume Design by Kaibrina Buck
Props by Sig Hafstrom
Stage Manager Jahana Azodi


With
Jen Baker (Trombone, Chorus)
Chris Broderick (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Harmonicas, Chorus)
Dan Bruno (Percussion, Chorus)
Jason Craig (Beowulf, Toy Piano)
Cameron Galloway (Academic 3/Dragon)
Anna Ishida (Warrior 2)
Jessica Jelliffe (Academic 2/Mother)
Christopher Kuckenbaker (Academic 1/Grendel)
Dave Malloy (Hrothgar, Piano, Accordion, Programming)
Andre Nigoghossian (Guitar, Ukulele, Saw, Chorus)
Andy Strain (Trombone, Chorus)
Shaye Troha (Warrior 1)
Simon Hanes (Bass, Chorus)
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**East Bay Express Best of the East Bay 2008:
Best Theatrical Production,
Best Theatrical Production Reader's Choice

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yon dig pics by Jessica Palopoli dig yon.