Breathless Beowulf brings storytelling theatre to Dublin

international | arts and media | news report Sunday October 21, 2007 22:33 by The Oh-Aissieux - Narrative Arts Club narrativearts at gmail dot com Cill Mhaighneann 086 060 3818

The seanchaí never played the watering-can this way!

Two Danish performers last night gave an adventurous audience at the Players Theatre its first dazzling glimpse of “storytelling theatre” with a breath-taking performance of their free adaptation of the Old English saga, Beowulf.

Beowulf at DU Players - Jesper and Troels

Performing non-stop for 70 minutes to a rapt audience of a hundred people, Jesper la Cour Andersen and Troels Kirk Ejsing used simple narration, intimate eye contact, audience interaction, broad physical mime and innovative music to fire the synapses of their listeners’ imagination, with only occasional departures into enactment of brief scenes from the saga.

At the end of the performance, students and lecturers familiar with the epic poem were left in no doubt: This is Beowulf, but not as we know it. Similarly, Irish listeners were left in little doubt: The seanchaí never played the watering-can with such skill and dexterity.

Jesper and Troels are members of The Telling Theatre, a touring theatre company based in Copenhagen that was founded in 1996 to explore the meeting point between theatre and its origins in storytelling:
http://www.detfortaellendeteater.dk/engindex.asp

Storytelling theatre is also well established in the UK, where Ben Haggarty frequently performs narrative adaptations of great epics, including a two-and-a-half hour version of Frankenstein:
http://www.crickcrackclub.com/CRICRACK/BENHF.HTM
http://www.crickcrackclub.com/CRICRACK/TELLBH.HTM

The show at the DU Players was produced by the Narrative Arts Club in collaboration with the Dublin University Players (student drama society) and the School of English at Trinity College, with additional sponsorship from the Embassy of Denmark.

The Narrative Arts Club was founded in September 2005 to promote innovative storytelling for young adult audiences in Dublin:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/71918
http://tinyurl.com/2barxo