The Charm City spawned an action-packed retelling of the prehistoric legend of man versus beast: BEOWULF, a psychedelic adventure show inspired by the epic poem of the same name. Four members of the touring Baltimore Annex Theater (Kevin Blackstone, Evan Moritz, Kaitlin Murphy and Tim Paggi) enacted all the roles while controlling lights, music and puppets in an interactive set that created multiple worlds for the great hero to explore. In the confines of an eight-foot cube, we witnesed Beowulf scaling a tower to banquish a great and terrible dragon, diving to the bottom of the sea to have it out with Grendel's mother, before finally matching wits with Grendel himself in flurry of soliloquies on the nature of heroes and monsters. BEOWULF honed the story to its essentials while enriching it with surprising elements.

The audience was greeted by three trays laden with Beowulf-themed vegan cupcakes to devour (which they did, quickly). Local one-man-band Tristan Dahn kicked off the performance portion of the programme with a short set of narrative soundscaping using guitar, saxophone, musical bellows and percussion, all ringing out at once from his lushly carpeted corner of the stage. For the final night of their tour, the members of the Baltimore Annex Theater showed off their ripped tights, dimestore chainmail and wooden weaponry as they weilded cardboard creations and fabric monsters amidst a melee of drums and keyboards, blacklit beasts and shadow puppet illusions, ending with the stage transforming into the great Grendel himself who devoured the hero whole. When all had been packed up and taken back to Baltimore, the only trace remaining were cupcake crumbs all over the carpet.

See more of the Baltimore Annex Theater here.
Hear the music of Tristan Dahn here.
Check out what's happening at the Rotunda here.