Today was a classically un-hard day at school. After morning school announcements, I got on a bus with 40 of Meredith’s very well-behaved students and headed south to Barberton, Ohio, to go to see the Magical Theatre Company’s production of Beowulf. That isn’t to say it was no work – there is a certain underlying angst for being responsible for 41 students on a bus, and the six chaperons were responsible for about 170 students overall. Still, since our kids are pretty good, it was a nice day away from the office.

Magical Theatre Company does a lot of shows geared toward children and/or schools, so we have been there several times in the past few years. It is an old movie theater that they converted into a theater, which means it can hold a ton of people – all of us, plus students from two other schools (although we did take up 2/3 of the theater with our students). The theater has good sight lines, and okay acoustics – there were a few times where it was a little hard to hear in the back, but not too much, and not more than you could catch by listening carefully.

The company commissioned the work, and the playwright was also an actor in the five-person cast. He managed to cut down the original epic poem to 65 minutes, six people played by four actors, and one actor who played three monsters. It actually worked quite well. He updated the language to modern English, but kept all the key actions and characters.

The acting was very solid. Beowulf himself was quite excellent, and I was impressed at his ripping off his lines effortlessly while doing push-ups (to warm up for his fight against the monster Grendel). The character interactions were just a tad stiff at times, but that was necessary as part of filling in the audience on back-story.

The monsters were very cool. They were all bigger-than-life puppets (costumes, really) that were played by one man. Grendel was about 9 feet tall, and had 6-foot-long arms that ended in claws. He had an arm that was detachable (the story calls for that), and he was a convincing monster that was having his way with Beowulf until Beowulf managed to rip off an arm. Grendel even sat down on a stone at one point and laughed at Beowulf in a gloating manner – it was a nice touch.

Grendel’s mother was about 12 feet tall, with smaller arms and claws, but she made up for it by being armed with a dagger/sword. She snapped Beowulf’s sword with one blow, but then Beowulf wrested her dagger away and used it to cut her head off (the head really came off the puppet). It was a fun moment when the decapitated monster rose back up to attack Beowulf, who was resting, and he had to quickly kill it again.

The last monster was a very impressive dragon. They managed this nice trick by having the actor just play the head sticking out of the cave. They also threw a long length of tail on stage during the fight to give you a sense that this thing was very big. The dragon “breathed fire” by a strobe light in its mouth, and the ear-flaps moved in and out as well. It was a pretty cool dragon.

The play had lots of background music, which I liked and thought added to the mood of the play (except in the very first scene, where the music was too loud to hear the actors easily). Some of the students thought the music was cheesy, but I think high school students are more often concerned with being sophisticated than with giving themselves over to childlike wonder. I liked it.

The set was basic, but very cool – lots of different levels with rocks strewn all over, with a few primitive columns that could be swung about to make different spaces. They had a rope-like netting hung all over to suggest decay, (and to be lit a greenish tint for Beowulf being pulled underwater to fight Grendel’s mother). It worked very well.

There was a good time of questions and answers afterward (despite some questions like “how much can you bench press?” and “what conditioner do you use?”). I like Q and A time in theaters – it gives me an appreciation of the thought process of staging a play.

After the play, we all got back on the bus and headed to Chapel Hill Mall, where we released our hungry charges into the food court. Mer and I got food from the Great Steak and Potato Company, followed up by Dairy Queen. It was a very satisfying lunch. Happily, all the students were back on the buses in time (thanks to some gentle prodding by Meredith), and we got back to school in time for the last two classes (much to the delight of the students, I am sure).

Not a bad day at work, today.