As promised, here is my review of the
Lord of the Rings musical I recently saw at the Princess of Wales Theatre in downtown Toronto, albeit a little late.
Having enjoyed many musical productions including Beauty and the Beast, Terracotta Warriors (Chinese production) and Sound of Music, I had very high expectations going into the Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings books are famous, the movies lengendary, and anyone bold enough to turn it into a musical would certainly have to be confident they can uphold the reputation. This production also boasts a huge budget of $25 million and although I can't find the average budget size for musicals, I'm sure it has raised a few eyebrows (The Peter and Pan production showing at the Citadel Theatre has a budget of $1 million). Needless to say, I was eagerly looking forward to the show.
Tickets for the show range from $26 - $110 and although I was tempted to purchase better seating, my economical side kept me to the $26 tickets and it was a good thing as our tickets were automatically upgraded due to a cancelled group. The seating in the theatre is divided into three sections: the orchestra (main floor), the dress circle (first balcony) and a second balcony. Unlike most theatres, the first balcony has the best seats as it is positioned slightly above the stage providing a direct view of the stage. With our new tickets, we ended up sitting in the orchestra section. The threatre in general was a lot smaller than I had imagine. The theatre claims a seating capacity of 2000 but my feeling is that it is nowhere near that number and the stage itself was no larger than that of a mainstage theatre at the Citadel. Perhaps it was the way the theatre was designed but it seems the threatre was small enough to allow a good view from any seat.
The design of the set was simple yet at the same time elaborate. From a custom curtain, vines stretching out from all sides of the stage, to creative uses of projectors and fans that literally extend the set into the audience, the production team has done a very good job of breaking the distinction between stage set and audience. As well, instead of using larger physical back drops, they elected to rely more on the actors to create the scene. Sometimes the actors would line up side by side with a piece of rectangular design to create a much larger stage prop and seconds later, they become actors in the scene. From actor to prop and prop to actor, their creative use of the actors allows for seamless scene changes with hardly a noticeable delay and certainly made the 3.5 hour show pass by quickly. Combined with heavy uses of the circular center in the stage that can rotate and elevate to different heights, this theatrical production did an excellent job of adapting the set to the layout of the theatre and maximizing the use of the stage.
I'm no expert on costume design but it was obvious there were many including some rather large and impressive ones to re-create some of the creatures in the story. One quick observation: Gollum's costume = realistic. Gimli's (dwarf) costume = Klingon outfit.
The music itself was a little disappointing. It's not the singers fault nor is it the composer - the fact is I don't think Lord of the Rings should have been turned into a musical in the first place (can you imagine a BraveHeart musical?). Granted, hobbits are quite the musical fellows in the book but there just aren't enough opportunities to capitalize on. More often than not, the scenes seem a little contrived. In the end, there weren't that many different songs and sometimes felt like the songs were slight variations of the previous. The singers, however, did sing very well considering its the third month into performance and the composer did do a good job in capturing the spirit of the hobbits and the elvish tones.
Overall, I think the production team did a very good job in adapting the book into a musical and to the layout of the theatre but the fact remains that Lord of the Rings isn't the ideal musical. When I think of Lord of the Rings, I think legions of men and elves fighting off swarms of goblins, large magical duals between Gandalf and Saruman - I think of battles with epic proportions and not all of that was captured very well. Despite having over 65 actors, singers and musicians, the stage was only big enough to allow a handful of actors on at a time. A story of this reputation deserves something bigger and I think it would have been much better if they had a larger casting and toured the cities across North America performing at larger venues instead of a three month showing at a smaller theatre. The Lord of the Rings musical was good, but it wasn't great and in the end, I couldn't help but feel a little cheated having missed an Oilers playoff game to watch the show.
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