Lord of the OH MY GOD!
Several of us went to see Lord of the Rings: The Musical tonight. Let me say that this further proves that Saul Zaentz destroys all Tolkien stuff he touches and I’m glad he stayed out of the movies. This also resparked my hatred for theatre and a dawning belief that MOST theatre is crap. Now, I do feel bad for the actors and crew in the show, they tried their best and I hope that they did it because it was merely professional work and not a belief that the show was good. I instead blame the director and the writers for putting that show together in the first place. Now, I have lots of friends in Toronto in theatre and specifically fighting… and they all warned me off of it with frenzied gestures and vocal ranting, but I figured I had to see it anyway.
First off, if you don’t know the story of Lord of the Rings, it might very well be impossible to follow what is going on as they jump rapidly through the story and not always continguously. The play is 3h 45m, which is VERY LONG for something that you enjoy watching much less something that isn’t good.
I’ll have to itemize my issues with the play, as there are too many of them to write about:
- Hobbits are portrayed as stupid people
- None of the characters are good - Gandalf was horrible; none of the presence that the character needs
- The people of Bree are hillbillies and do a hoedown with the Hobbits
- They skip Weathertop (stabbing Frodo in Bree instead)
- They take a moment similar to the movie at the council of Elrond, but instead Frodo puts the ring on the floor
- They skip the Watcher in the Water
- In Moria with the Balrog (hard to tell even what it is), a Florida Everglades airboat is on stage (the noisy fan to blow black paper at the audience)
- Galadriel has a hat on that makes her look like an sprouting potato
- When Frodo accepts the Phial of Galadriel, he takes it from his coat — WORST PALMING EVER
- Boromir dies by being circled and jumped over by Orcs
- Theoden just feels better after talking with Aragorn and goes to war
- Ents look very similar to ZZ-top band members on 35′ stilts (old men with hats, trenchcoats, beards)
- Helm’s Deep has a massive silent battle (as all the cast are using rubber swords)
- Gollum twists and contorts himself constantly for no reason
- Shelob is controlled by people not in all black (so you are somewhat distracted by the “operators” of the spider)
- Two very loud sword hits (SWORD HITS) ring out when Sam attacks Shelob
- The light of Eärendil apparently is about 40 watts
- Battle of Pellinor Fields is skipped and we move directly to the black gate
- The battle at the black gate is done as an interpretive dance sequence and people aren’t actually fighting, just gesturing and falling down
- Gollum when he takes the ring (and dies) descends slowly on a hydralic stage while standing
- Gandalf appears beside Sam and Frodo to rescue them (not sure how he got there or how they get back)
- Saruman comes out of Bag End in a trenchcoat and looking to knife fight (West Side Story anyone?)
- Bill Ferny kills Saruman by accident
- None of the songs (maybe except one) are memorable or even interesting
There you go - I hear it’s not doing well and I guess I now know why. It’s unfortunate but I guess after hearing the warnings I didn’t expect much… but I got even less.
5 comments June 24th, 2006