Riverviews Artspace’s latest show puts a new spin on an old classic.
The downtown arts organization is hosting the Baltimore Annex Theater’s touring production of “Beowulf,” which is scheduled for 8 tonight.
Evan Moritz, one of the production’s four directors, says they were inspired by other theater groups that do quality touring work on a small budget.
The Baltimore Annex Theater is a non-profit that has produced classic plays, absurdist theater and original works at locales around the city, including the Baltimore Museum of Art.
For their first touring show, “we wanted to delve more into myths,” he says.
They eventually settled on “Beowulf,” the Old English epic poem about a hero who fights three beasts: Grendel, who has been attacking and cannibalizing residents of a mead hall in Demark; Grendel’s mother, out for revenge over her son’s death; and, later in his life, a dragon.
The production itself is a collaboratively written interpretation of the story that takes place in reverse and uses puppetry, live action and the actor’s strong sense of physicality.
Moritz says the play works in reverse because, oftentimes, the oldest chronological elements of a story are “usually the impetus for the entire myth.”
They were also inspired by John Gardner’s 1971 novel “Grendel,” which is told from the monster’s point-of-view.
In one scene, Grendel goes to see the dragon, who talks about molecules and outer space exploration, ideas that are way beyond the original story’s fifth century setting, Moritz says.
“I really liked the idea that, in some way or another, these monsters were omniscient.”
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