Feast: For Those of Us Who Need a Mythical, Magical Being to Tell Us About Ourselves

The tale of Beowulf has been recirculated for over one thousand years. The victory of man over monster and then again over monster’s mother apparently resonates with people across millennia. Playwright Megan Gogerty shifts the perspective of the story in Feast, taking the spotlight away from the hero who slayed the monster and giving it to the mother of the slain monster instead. 

Walking Shadow Theatre first mounted Feast last year and – in response to the popularity of the show – they are remounting it this March. All the core elements are the same. The show includes dinner at Black Forest Inn, it is once again directed by Allison Vincent, and it stars Isabel Nelson (who recently won Best Dramatic Performance by an Individual for last year’s performance). A few of the Saturday shows will be preceded by a one-person show of Beowulf. 

I had the opportunity to chat with Vincent and Nelson about bringing the show back, although our conversation was early enough that they had not even started rehearsals yet. “We’re looking forward to get back in the room together,” says Vincent. The two have worked on various projects together over the last fifteen years. Their long history is immediately apparent in their easy riffing.

“We’ve been working together for 15 years?” Vincent says. 

“Our relationship is a teenager. It’s oily and smelly,” laughs Nelson.

“I just turned to ash and blew away,” Vincent deadpans.

Despite their long working relationship, Feast was new for them in two ways.

“It was our first time working off of a script,” says Nelson.

“And my first time directing Isabel,” Vincent continues.

Both elements made the prospect of collaborating on Feast exciting, but the script was what sold them on the project. “I wasn’t surprised by the positive reception [last year] because the source material is so good,” says Vincent.

“It’s meaty,” Nelson continues, “The premise is that Grendel’s mother has magicked herself into a human body in order to demand justice for her son,” says Nelson, “The show is funny and rageful and weird. It’s a wild ride.”

 “And there’s dinner,” says Vincent. She laughs, but quickly goes on to explain that the dinner was a key component to planning the piece. “The dinner is called for in the script,” she says, conceding that some theaters would just suggest the remnants of a meal on stage, but that Walking Shadow wanted to go all in. “We wanted bones on tables and the smell of food in the air.”

Nelson agrees. “Food feeds into this profound, earth-shattering joy of what it means to be alive and embodied,” says Nelson, “I hope people take away [that feeling in addition to] wrestling with the darkness.”

The darkness is integral to the show. Feast is funny, but it also wrestles with tough questions, many of which are socially and politically charged. All of these questions are asked by the mother of a “monster” whose story was flattened into one of defeat and popularized over a millennium ago. The audience is put in the hot seat. Was Grendel – her son – actually a monster? And if he wasn’t a monster, what does that make our hero, his murderer, Beowulf? What does that make us, who have celebrated him for centuries?

“As our world evolves different people have the right and ability to share their story. It’s that classic Howard Zinn thing: history is written by the winners…I love that Walking Shadow pairs this with Beowulf,” says Vincent, “In Feast you think ‘oh man that’s someone’s kid’ after you hear the story of the guy who killed him…that vantage point of seeing both sides of a story is so important right now.”

At the beginning of last year’s run Nelson was hesitant to chat with theater patrons after the show. They worried that stepping into the space out of character would shatter what was built during the performance. Instead, they soon realized that many attendees wanted a chance to talk about the experience. “People who I didn’t know would come up to me and share something very personal that the show had surfaced for them,” says Nelson, “This show cracked open this space for another kind of connection.”

“I really do think the reason why people have such a reaction at the end is we trick them into being a community,” piggybacks Vincent, “In the age we live in…what are our opportunities for connection? This play does that.” Feast offers connection in a unique way, and a tricky one: it toys with people’s political ideas. “You can feel shifts in the crowd…You feel the waves of connection shifting around. It’s an amazing audience experience.” 

The show is powerful for everyone, although some elements are especially resonant for women. “[This character] gave me permission to take up space,” says Nelson, before launching into a list of contradictory adjectives that they say the character gave them renewed ownership over, “Physically I move through the world differently…I can be weird, funny, gross, and sexy. [T]hat’s powerful for a lot of women. I’m allowed to be monstrous and beautiful and tender and frightening. Sometimes in the space of three breaths.”

Feast is the kind of show that will leave you a lot to nibble on – and not just leftovers of the dinner provided by Black Forest Inn. After all, when “A mythical, magical being comes and tells us about ourselves,” as Vincent quipped, you are left with lots to think about. 

Who knows what you might learn about yourself and the world you inhabit with an experience like that?