Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, by James Craig, starts with three scholars talking about "Beowulf." Then the music (by Dave Malloy) starts -- it's thunk-a-thunk and dreary, slow and boring, all minor dissonance -- like a bad German expressionistic band from 1927. I'm sure that's what they intended, but it doesn't work for me as entertainment.
It gets better with the arrival of Beowulf (played by a strong Craig). While the lecture, which they keep coming back to, has satirical humor, some of the dialogue in the show is repetitive, simplistic and boring. It's very inventive, but the product invented is basically monotonous -- Kurt Weill meets Steven Sondheim in an immature anti-musical with a punk tone.
Act Two has a lively, well-sung-and-danced number that picks up the show, but some of the music seems out of the Ukrainian Steppes. All-in-all an earnest endeavor, but a failed experiment, with some very good singer/actors, quite cleanly directed by Rod Hipskind.
