LORD OF THE RINGS, THE MUSICAL

[chasetoronto]

Posted: 3/8/06 at 9:39am

Sadly this new musical being mounted in Toronto and bound for London is a collosal disaster. There is not one memorable song and the staging is clumsy and depressing. Clocking in at 3 1/2 hours without many high points - there is no crossover potential for families. Die hard fans of the trilogy might respond but this is bad news.

[mominator]

Posted: 3/8/06 at 10:09am

From what I have been hearing.. die hard fans would be more up set at the changes that were made to the story.

[bare_nakedlady]

Posted: 3/8/06 at 11:01am

**SPOILERS*****SPOILERS******SPOILERS*****



I saw the production on the 19th of Feb and it clocked 3 3/4 hrs. I meant to write a rather scathing review however I never got a round to it after reading all the other reviews and finding that they all pretty much sum it up!

The music is wonderful but nothing 'showstopping' There are only two songs that I would really consider Musical theatre songs, the rest are incidental. The orchestra plays almost the entire show basically scoring it to wonderous degrees. The scenery and FX are fantastic, and the preshow and ending of acts are nothing short of magnificent. However, the acting and storytelling falls very short of Epic or acceptable.

Brent Carver whom I used to think was amazing, couldn't remember his lines to save his life or the show's. He couldn't even remember the first lines of his song. His portrayal of Gandalf was tired and laborious. Every time he came on stage we addesd 20 min for dramatic pausing. You couldn't tell if he was trying to be William Shatner or... if he... just... couldn't...re...re..remember ..his ....lines!

Overall, the staging is generally laughable like when Galandriel takes them to lothlorian. A huge ladder comes down and before they can climb it they have to be blindfolded so they don't know how to get there in the future. While the effect is very cool... One wonders why they would be blindfolded. If it were me and I wanted to find them again I'd look for the giant ladder in the forest.

Also, Galandriel's song is fantastic, but come on its way to long, we don't even know what she's saying because it's in a nother language and she's just standing there forever.

The Giant Spider and Battle sequences are amazing, but a little long, and the (whatever it is that takes Gandalf away) are awesome FX.

But that's it! The show is non stop FX and spectacle which is wonderful, however I don't think that there is enough LOTR in it for LOTR fans and not enough THEATRE in it for THEATRE fans. That and the lack of publicity in the general Toronto area leads me to believe that unless a lot of work gets done this will reach LONDON but not broadway folks. It doesn't have that big of an advance because people aren't coming back for more. So once you exhaust your audience, who's left?????

Updated On: 3/8/06 at 11:01 AM

[anfwesternboy]

Posted: 3/8/06 at 11:11am

I saw the show last Friday, and I recall that they don't blindfold them anymore when they climb the ladder.

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 3/8/06 at 11:47am

They are blinfolded because it was in the book.