Review: BEOWULF: A RETELLING by Taffety Punk Theatre

Beowulf is one of the oldest and most translated pieces of Old English literature. If you ever had to study it in high school, it’s likely the weighty poetics and narrative detours bogged down your reading. But the true action and heroics of the tale also deserve their time to shine. 

Taffety Punk Theatre Company member and bard of all bards Marcus Kyd excavated the heart of the tale from the fossil of its manuscript and brought it back to life. This rendition of the historic epic was an approachable and entertaining alternative that really helped one “get” it. 

The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop’s black box was transformed into an ancient Germanic mead hall with mead, ale, and a signature cocktail (with modern-day alcoholic and non-alcoholic options for each). The stage’s parameters were only a suggestion, as Kyd occasionally leaped off of it and weaved through the round tables where the audience sat as he spun his tale. 

Kyd’s performance mirrored the conviction of scholars that Beowulf was a script taken from an oral performance. He told the tale how it would have been told when it was written and even before the written word existed, with a casual yet engaging style, digressions about contemporary figures, and multimodal storytelling with props and instruments. 

The stage was set up for a whole band, but Kyd utilized all the stools and instruments himself as emphasis for moments in the narrative. He pulled up a stool and acoustic guitar to start a jovial sing-along and ran a bow along an electric guitar for the eerie sound of Beowulf’s first encounter with Grendel. A standout moment of Foley came with a drum set during the scene of Beowulf underwater fighting Grendel’s mother. The mallets were the swords, the cymbals crashed when they were swung down on the monster, and the kick drum was the head of the beast hitting the floor and getting lugged to the surface of the lake. 

The recounting of Beowulf’s heroics was interwoven with poignant moments of wisdom and allusions to figures in contemporary history. Kyd started with the knowledge that the tale he told was not just an isolated narrative, as “every story is just the middle of a bigger story.” From heroic Maui lifeguard Eddie Aikau to greedy Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, he sought to contextualize the characters and their actions for the audience and assert that history affects the present. Kyd was direct and deliberate about these digressions: “Sometimes the unthinkable doesn’t seem possible until it is upon you. That’s why we tell these stories.”

The performance also attempted to celebrate the sentiment of ancestral connections and family names. Kyd wrote “The Geneaology Song” — seemingly to the tune of “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie — and had the audience sing along. Despite this jingle, keeping the ancient Germanic names straight was still a struggle for those who were not as familiar with the tale or who had a personal weakness for remembering names. However, this did not detract too severely from the storytelling. 

Overall, the performance had an infectious, immersive quality: The casual, expressive personality and engaging narrative made it easy for the audience to elicit raucous laughter and somber silence. Kyd’s recounting was so fluid and captivating that the only things to remind the audience that there was a structure to the piece were the expert lighting changes orchestrated by Elijah Thomas. The brightness and hue of the lights synchronized with Kyd’s tone and made the performance even more riveting. 

Marcus Kyd is performing Beowulf: A Retelling with Taffety Punk Theatre Company in the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop from April 4th through 19th. Tickets can be found at the link below.

Runtime: 90 minutes