"One Musical Adaptation to Rule Them All"
J.R.R Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, returns to the stage to tell the story of Frodo Baggins' journey from the comfort of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom in a revamped production of the original show back in 2007.
The first preview at the State Theatre in Sydney inspired fans to go above and beyond by dressing up as elves and hooded rangers with a photo op with the famous green Bag End circle door. As people were making their way to their seats, the hobbits of the Shire were setting up for Biblio Baggins' 111th Birthday and interacting with the audience as if we are invited to the Long Expected Party. This becomes a reoccurring part of the show with characters running or sneaking around the stalls. A smile came to my face seeing Bilbo (looking very much like Ian Holm) walking around talking the audience as if he had the honour of living among such excellent and admirable people.
The musical is divided into 2 acts. Act 1, which traditionally went through the events of The Fellowship of the Ring and Act 2, which focused more on the events of The Return of the King and aftermath of the destruction of the One Ring. Both fans of the movies and books will have a field day picking out their favourite scenes and notice some missing ones. The musical tries its best to capture the critical moments from all 3 books into a 3 hour run time. This results in removing chunks of the books (majority of the Two Towers) to focus strongly Frodo's story. A weird decision that was made was to merge Theoden and Denethor together to save time going through the Rohan/Battle of Helm's Deep part of the Two Towers.
Rarmian Newton (playing Frodo Baggins) leads a Australian theatre veteran and newcomer cast including Terence Crawford as Gandalf, Jemma Rix as Galadriel and Wern Mak as Samwise Gamgee. An interesting point to mention is that the multi talented cast sung, act, danced and played a musical instrument. A crowd pleaser and highlight was the appearance of Gollum at the beginning of Act 2. Laurence Boxhall captures the physical energy, humour and voice of Andy Serkis' motion capture performance in the LOTR and Hobbit films, even during his song number near the end of the show.
Before going into the theatre, I wondered "How will they show the Balrog, Ring Wraiths, Orcs, Shelob and Sauron himself?" With the use of modern day practical and visual affects, they did them justice with great affect by taking inspiration from the descriptions from the books.
As I said earlier in the review that the cast were able to play musical instruments, the music of the Lord of The Rings - A Musical Tale brings a folk/mediaeval atmosphere to the show. The use of acoustic guitars, cellos, harps, violins, mandolins, drums, flutes and the odd didgeridoo (used as the voices of the Trees of Fargorn Forest speaking Entish) provides cosiness and intimacy which makes you feel the story is being told by a fireside.
A song highlight is "Now And For Always", a song which Sam and Frodo sing just before they reach Mount Doom. They discuss the journey they have made, how will they be remembered by future generations and how their story will inspire hope. The musical continues that tradition of retelling this classic story to help inspire future generations to come.
Be sure to be part of the story throughout January 2025
Chicago Shakespeare Theater Production Photography by Liz Lauren
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