05/19/2006 Archived Entry: "The Lord of the Rings – On Stage"
Adapting a book trilogy into 10 hours of film is not easy. You’re bound to drop someone’s favourite character, subplot, or scene. How much more difficult it would be to condense a book trilogy into a 3 hour stage production.
As you can imagine, there is a lot left out; particularly of the second and third books. In fact, the first half of the play is made up entirely of Fellowship of the Ring. The effect being that the play is much more heavily focused on Sam and Frodo (than the movie). We lose out on pretty much all of the politics of middle earth and 2nd tier characters get no development at all. This is all about the hobbits, Aragorn, and Gandalf. In the end, there’s really a disconnect between the audience and the play – for example, Thoeden’s death is made out to be a huge deal (music, lighting, levitation) but he did not get nearly enough stage time to merit such an end.
The acting was alright all around, except for the glaringly miscast part of Gandalf. It’s possible that it wasn’t the actor’s fault since no one can ever portray Gandalf in any kind of satisfying manner after Ian McKellen completely owned the role. However, a worse choice could not have been made than the high-pitched, squeaky-voiced actor who delivered his lines as if the Mouth of Sauron had just bit his balls off. Also, Boromir was black! Didn’t these guys READ LotR? Black = bad guys, white = good guys.
The very best part of the show was the technical aspects of it. I was hugely impressed by the stage which was built and how versatile it is and creatively it was used to portray everything from Mt. Doom to a bedroom chamber in Rivendell. The best use of it was during the battle of Helm’s Deep where it seems like the dozen pieces of the stage are all moving at once creating a huge sense of chaos and disarray.
Overall, it felt like the play used the books and movies as crutches. If you’re not familiar with other – more complete – versions of the story, then Lord of the Rings On Stage makes no sense and just sits there in front of you going through the motions. It’s sort of like getting head from a 300 lb woman – only somewhat satisfying.
Replies: 10 comments
Such a crude analogy...
Posted by Étienne @ 05/19/2006 10:52 AM EST
Black = bad?!?...:P
Posted by dAN @ 05/19/2006 11:39 AM EST
yes, in the books, there is a distinct portrayal that the evil men that formed Sauron's armies were black or dark coloured while the men from the north etc were light coloured. As a visual distinction between the good and the bad.
Posted by sbdep @ 05/19/2006 03:02 PM EST
i gotta agree with most of what you said ... like they didn't develop eowyn at all and then she has this huge part where she kills that black shadowy nazgool type thingy (or whatever it was called)
and gandalf ... ugh ... i was sitting so close i could see the wrinkles drawn on his face. he seemed to weak b/c of the whiney voice.
but you gotta love the hobbit dancing. t'was great! i think i could watch that bar scene for a good act ... so much energy!
Posted by melpie @ 05/19/2006 10:50 PM EST
wait a minute, you haven't even read the books, so how is it fair of you to comment on that portion of it? I'd have to say that overall I was definitely impressed by the show and the money was well spent. Shelob and the Balrog were worth every penny! I think they really stayed more true to the books than to the movies. The movies they used more for costume and set design. Your comments of "those lines were straight out of the movies" doesn't mean that they only came from the movies, a lot pretty good lines were penned by Tolkien (while I will admit I'm sure some of them did come from the movies but not from the books). I'd say it's only really hard to understand if you've only seen the movies (hence the poor reviews), but if you'd only read the books you'd be able to follow with ease.
deposit: 2 cents
Posted by Mike @ 05/20/2006 12:16 AM EST
Kind of cheesy if you have to read the novel of a production to fully comprehend it. Thus, poor reviews should be warranted.
Posted by dAN @ 05/20/2006 11:58 AM EST
It's not that you HAVE to read the novel to understand the story, but it's a great compliment to it, just like the books are a great compliment to the book. Anything other than the books is just an adaptation and is limited to the medium it is adapted for. The show definitely did not deserve the poor reviews (other than the gandalf critique). My guess is that too many people only know the adapted story from the movies (that weren't entirely true to the novel) so they didn't understand the ending, which was cut from the movie.
Posted by Mike @ 05/21/2006 07:16 PM EST
Lord of the Rings (The Trilogy) in three hours is reason enough not to go.
Posted by Dave @ 05/23/2006 11:56 AM EST
Thank you!
[url=http://bnjdgoym.com/gzjj/pjay.html]My homepage[/url] [url=http://gcagftwz.com/dvgt/tikm.html]Cool site[/url]
Posted by Thank you![url=http://bnjdgoym.com/gzjj/pjay.html]My homepage[/url] [url=http://gcagftwz.com/dvgt/tikm.html]Cool site[/url] @ 07/19/2006 06:05 PM EST
Thank you!
My homepage Please visit
Posted by Thank you!My homepage Please visit @ 07/19/2006 06:05 PM EST