[Regia-NA] Beowulf Live!

[Tracie Brown]

This past Tuesday night, Mark Miner, a graduate student in 
Classics here at the University of Georgia, recited the first 
836 lines of Beowulf (through the fight with Grendel) in Old 
English. With feeling.  What fun!  First, there would be a 
modern English reading of a section, the Mark would recite 
it, which made understanding the original much easier.  A 
friend of mine, Kelly Stewart, provided harp interludes, 
nothing medieval, but very nice indeed.  (She's a UGA grad 
too, and just finished her masters in historical musicology 
and performance at the University of North Wales.)

About 2/3 of the way though there was a break for food and 
mead. Great (modern) food! The sorority girls who did the 
food did a fantastic job -- I just recommended them to cater 
a wedding reception. Thereafter the modern English version 
became much less straight-faced.  The old English was 
completely hammed up.  (It's like I tell my audiences, "the 
most important thing to remember about Celtic music is: the 
more you drink, the better we sound.")

There were about 50 people in the audience, which just about 
filled the space, some obviously students in Dr. Provost's 
Old English class, some former students (some even my age -- 
Dr. P's been at this for a while), local folks and some in 
from Atlanta.  

Mark was bemoaning the fact that the costume he intended to 
do this in was still stuck in California, but from his 
description and the person who made it, it sounded pretty 
good.  I do wish that they had dimmed the lights from the 
beginning (they did at half-time). 

Altogether a delightful evening. 

-- Tracie