Posted by Susannah Snider

Two men bounded out from behind a screen, wearing ill-fitting green dresses and socks. They waved two croquet mallets at each other while one measured out an electronic beat on a keyboard. The pair began belting out a strange duet about barbeque flavored corn nuts and "Heather."

This was "the ing cycle," Los Angeles-based duo, Max Markowitz and John Wood's, interpretation of Wagner's masterpiece. And it was brilliantly silly.

The performance took place behind Machine Project's nondescript Echo Park storefront on Saturday. Max and John acted out approximately seven characters from the "Ring," incorporating enough costume changes and on-stage stripping that I thought it was an updated version of "Salome" (opera joke, natch).

The barefoot duo's version of the "Ring" cycle was a supremely funny look at Wagner's creative process. Max and John have never seen the Wagner operas, they confessed to me after the performance, but they've done their homework, steeping themselves in Wagner's music and listening to a Radiolab special on the "Ring."

What stuck out to Max and John is that Wagner used a mishmash of Norse myths to create his famous four operas. They resolved to recreate his process by replacing Wagner's demigods and dwarves with a variety of famous film characters from the 1980s. The result is a playful spoof on the "Ring," utilizing those pop culture references that people from my generation (30 and under) hold dear.

Below is a list of Wagner's characters and their ing counterparts as best as I understood.

The Rhine Maidens = The Heathers. Remember that 1988 movie, featuring a fetching Winona Ryder and her attempts to endure a brutal group of high school mean girls? Well, ing plays the Rhine Maidens as croquet mallet-wielding ditzes.

Wotan = Jack Burton, played by Kurt Russell in the action flick "Big Trouble in Little China." Ing reminded of me a great quote: "Like I told my last wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it's all in the reflexes.'"

Brunhilde = Madison the mermaid from Ron Howard's 1984 film "Splash," starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. This character involved Max writhing on the floor in a bikini top and cardboard cutout fish fins. Madison/Brunhilde drowns herself in a pool of water instead of perishing in a fire.

Sieglinde = Princess Leah. "I can see the force in you," she sings to her demigod twin brother Siegmund. "I have it in me too." They begin to dance to some electronic keyboard beats. "Sex noises!" Princess Leah cries out as the two consummate their love.

Siegfried = Teen Wolf. "Teen wolf was a tragic hero who gave up his powers in the end for love," Max said after the show, explaining the similarities between Siegfried and the famous basketball-playing movie monster.

Gutrune = one of the Heathers, bizarrely enough.

That was it for what ing came up with. Now, I would like to offer some suggestions.

Hunding = as the Grandpa from 1987's "The Lost Boys." I can see him looking sarcastically at Siegmund when he arrives at his camp and saying, "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires."

Fricka = Jeanie Bueller from 1986's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." She could scold Wotan, get angry, then yell, "Go piss up a flagpole!"

Loge= Vizzini, that short little schemer from the 1987 movie "The Princess Bride." "Let me put it this way, have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons," he would say before choking on some Iocane powder.

I'm still figuring out how to incorporate this.