What do bunraku puppets, punks, and Old English epic poetry have in common? This might give you a hint.
Those characters are referring, of course, to Beowulf, the epic Old English story-poem that lends its characters and story to a new production of the musical Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, which is being performed in the Louis Room this weekend.
School of Comm sophomore Reagan Aleman is the stage manager for the show. She said that working on the show has been an exercise in adaptation.
Reagan Aleman: I love adaptation work. It’s one of my favorites. And the thing I’m drawn to the most, so getting to be a part of the process and, like, adapting this poem that’s so old in like, a way that is completely unexpected, and getting to show that people is super exciting.
The production Aleman is working on is composed by Dave Malloy and written by David Craig. The music for the show is influenced by music traditions in punk and rock, as well as klezmer and even choral harmonies.
[music from the show]
School of Comm senior Ethan Karas is directing the production. Karas says that his iteration of the production is inspired by the punk and rock aesthetics of the music, but also by the content of the story.
Ethan Karas: The punk aesthetic was one that struck out to us both because of the sound of the music, but also because punk beyond, just like the physical esthetic of what you might think punk looks like, if you think about punk, it’s also to me as, like, a fan of it as an art form. Is such a DIY esthetic as well. Like it is very people powered. Like the worst thing you can do is sort of Be A Poser and sort of just adopt it as an affectation. So I think for this show that’s so much about performance, both of masculinity and of heroism, and how those narratives that we kind of take for granted now started somewhere and were passed down, that the genre, style of punk is like a really cool medium to explore that in.
The main character of Beowulf is an ancient Scandinavian warrior. Over the course of the poem, he faces and fights three main foes: a monster called Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. In this production, all three have a material throughline.
EK: There are various versions of puppets for all three of the monsters that they will faces, and each one of them is just an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship and artistry from Liam and from the actors who are puppeteering them so well.
School of Comm junior Liam Jeninga spent hours working on each puppet. He created two bunraku puppets to represent Grendel’s mother and Beowulf. Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese puppetry.
Liam Jeninga: Bunrakus, take three puppeteers, one person on the head and the left arm, and then one person on the right arm and the hips, and then one person on the feet. And so there’s a lot of coordination that goes into that, as well as, like, breath work and just, you know, three people moving one body and making that one body seem like it is it truly one body takes a lot. So the first day, I brought them in to work with the puppeteers, with the actors. It was such a magical moment when they they finally got it and they suggest I lost the puppeteers, and I just saw the puppet swimming through water.
Jeninga said that the puppets, which include Grendel’s arm and hand as well as the two bunraku puppets, add to the fantastical atmosphere of the production.
LJ: that’s the other thing about Beowulf, right? Is because it is this epic, this myth, this magical, magical myth is puppets are able to bring that magic to life. I think when a puppet walks into a room, it brings a whole world with it. The audience sees a puppet, and they’re ready to believe anything. And when that happens, that is that’s like true, real world magic.
The oldest known manuscript of Beowulf dates back the the eleventh century, but some scholars believe its true origins to be in oral history, making it possibly centuries older.
Aleman and Karas both referenced Beowulf’s ancient history and continued relevance as part of what they want audiences to take away from the show.
RA: I think for me, like when I when I watched the show all the way through, the thing that I always come away with at the end is just like the power of story as a means of, like connecting people and passing down these like ideals and morals and then, like, thinking about. Yeah, whether we agree or disagree with the things that are being passed out through story. And like, I think that that’s something that this show like sparks a conversation about in a really fun way. That’s unexpected, but it does make you think a little bit about, like, what are the what are the kind of stories that we’re that we’re telling, and why do we tell the stories? Because the things that survive for this long hold meaning, and they hold power in the words that are being shared.
EK: it’s the oldest thing that we have in our language that we speak now. So in a lot of ways, it is the sort of the bedrock of which we all, by speaking this language, owe some sort of debt to. And language, like anything else, is a tool, so it’s somewhat neutral in and of itself. So I hope that this gives people greater appreciation and awareness of how that tool can be used.
Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage will be in the Louis Room today and tomorrow at 6:30pm and 9:30 pm.
[music pop]
For WNUR News, I’m Mika Ellison.
