I wasn't sure where to post this, so I figured I'd start a general thread about Theater.
Yesterday I went to see The Lord of the Rings, A Musical Tale at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I have a friend at the box office who got me free tickets, and they ended up being very good floor seats.
Overall I liked it quite a bit, though it had some flaws. Honestly, I think it would have been improved quite a bit if they had not made it a musical. The songs were mostly kind of flat, and they did not do a good job of moving the plot forward. They were mostly just used to set the scene at new locations, but the end result was bringing the forward momentum of the story to a halt.
The acting was good across the board, and I especially liked the actors playing Bilbo and Gollum. No one stood out as bad, and they even got John Lithgow to voice Treebeard, though his lines were pre-recorded. A lot of the Fellowship actors also played instruments, which I really enjoyed. Sam played guitar, Merry a violin, Pippin a cello, Boromir an accordion, Gimli another guitar, Legolas a trumpet, Gandalf a Bodhran, and Arwen a Harp. More unnamed Hobbits often joined in with other instruments. Aragorn and Frodo had no instruments and only sang, which gave them lead singer vibes. Also, actors would often have instruments slung across their backs instead of a sword, etc. So even though the songs themselves didn't fit in that well, I really loved how well the instruments integrated into the play.
The set was great, and they made good use of rotating and moving elements, and had a lot of verticality and the actors spent a lot of time in the audience and on balconies. The effects were a mixed bag. Some were extremely impressive. They had a huge puppet Shelob, which was stunning. The Black Riders were also really cool; they were black clad actors operating giant skeleton horse head puppets that snapped at the audience. But, the Balrog was just a sheet with fire projected on it, and a lot of other creatures were just represented by light, sound, and imagination. It seemed like they had to be judicious on where to spend their budget. I would have loved to see a troll or ent made with as much care as the others.
For me, the most interesting part was how they condensed the entire story into 3.5 hours. They told basically all of Fellowship, and most of Frodo & Sam's story (all abridged somewhat), but cut out almost everything dealing with humans in the second and third book. It was all summed up in a single scene where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas showed up at Denethor's court. Aragorn revealed himself as the heir, and Denethor immediately allied with him. Saruman's orcs attacked right then, then Gandalf surprised everyone by showing up as Gandalf the White, leading an army of ents. Denethor is killed in battle and Aragorn becomes king, then decides to attack Sauron to give Frodo and Sam cover. I felt like this could have used a joke about how things are moving more quickly than they expected, or something else that winked in the audience. They obviously had to make some difficult choices to condense everything, but I think it was the right call, because Frodo's story was well done and had time to breathe.
I'm really glad that I saw it and would recommend it to any fan of Tolkien, just for a unique take on the material. With a bit more work on the songs and effects, it would be great.
Yesterday I went to see The Lord of the Rings, A Musical Tale at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I have a friend at the box office who got me free tickets, and they ended up being very good floor seats.
Overall I liked it quite a bit, though it had some flaws. Honestly, I think it would have been improved quite a bit if they had not made it a musical. The songs were mostly kind of flat, and they did not do a good job of moving the plot forward. They were mostly just used to set the scene at new locations, but the end result was bringing the forward momentum of the story to a halt.
The acting was good across the board, and I especially liked the actors playing Bilbo and Gollum. No one stood out as bad, and they even got John Lithgow to voice Treebeard, though his lines were pre-recorded. A lot of the Fellowship actors also played instruments, which I really enjoyed. Sam played guitar, Merry a violin, Pippin a cello, Boromir an accordion, Gimli another guitar, Legolas a trumpet, Gandalf a Bodhran, and Arwen a Harp. More unnamed Hobbits often joined in with other instruments. Aragorn and Frodo had no instruments and only sang, which gave them lead singer vibes. Also, actors would often have instruments slung across their backs instead of a sword, etc. So even though the songs themselves didn't fit in that well, I really loved how well the instruments integrated into the play.
The set was great, and they made good use of rotating and moving elements, and had a lot of verticality and the actors spent a lot of time in the audience and on balconies. The effects were a mixed bag. Some were extremely impressive. They had a huge puppet Shelob, which was stunning. The Black Riders were also really cool; they were black clad actors operating giant skeleton horse head puppets that snapped at the audience. But, the Balrog was just a sheet with fire projected on it, and a lot of other creatures were just represented by light, sound, and imagination. It seemed like they had to be judicious on where to spend their budget. I would have loved to see a troll or ent made with as much care as the others.
For me, the most interesting part was how they condensed the entire story into 3.5 hours. They told basically all of Fellowship, and most of Frodo & Sam's story (all abridged somewhat), but cut out almost everything dealing with humans in the second and third book. It was all summed up in a single scene where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas showed up at Denethor's court. Aragorn revealed himself as the heir, and Denethor immediately allied with him. Saruman's orcs attacked right then, then Gandalf surprised everyone by showing up as Gandalf the White, leading an army of ents. Denethor is killed in battle and Aragorn becomes king, then decides to attack Sauron to give Frodo and Sam cover. I felt like this could have used a joke about how things are moving more quickly than they expected, or something else that winked in the audience. They obviously had to make some difficult choices to condense everything, but I think it was the right call, because Frodo's story was well done and had time to breathe.
I'm really glad that I saw it and would recommend it to any fan of Tolkien, just for a unique take on the material. With a bit more work on the songs and effects, it would be great.
