Its taken me a long time to get around to writing this, cause I'm still not entirely sure what I think. I know I certainly want to see it again, if only to firm up some of the scenes in my mind.
First, the good. Its spectacular, genuinely spectacular. The visual design is excellent, as is the music, for the most part. Costumes are wonderful and the set pieces are fantastic. There's some lovely acting moments and the genuine "heart" of the story is there.
The Bad. Its a little uneven. At times it's rushing headlong, like a slideshow of spectacular scenes one after another, then every now and then it tries to change tack and become a character piece, but with no buildup or denoument. The story has been compressed so much, but still remains very sparse. One would think that distilling the plot into its basic components would allow them to be handled in depth, but not so. Also, some forced moments with Aragorn and Arwen felt like they belonged in a different show. Finally, the Ents were dreadful.
Spoilers Follow!
The show began with hobbits catching fireflies through the audience. Nicely done and set the scene well. The set design at ths point is basically a wooden tangle of roots and branches stretching far beyond the proscenium arch out into the theatre, even obscuring some of the theatre boxes. At the centre of the stage we had a circular opening where the Title was projected.
The show began with a narration, straight into Bilbo's Birthday party which culminated in a fantastic stage illusion where Bilbo disappeared before our eyes. Not in a puff of smoke or a trapdoor, just a fade-out. I suspect they used the "pepper's ghost" trick, but however it was done, it set the bar very high for the rest of the show.
Bag End was created in a minimalist style using the Door, two chairs and a "fireplace". This was highly stylised and worked well. Gandalf threw the Ring into an open space of the surround and a burst of flame sprang out. Very effective. When Frodo left Bag end we saw him walk to the door and exit, then the stage was spun to see him coming out. A simple effect but nicely achieved.
The first appearance of the Ringwraiths was superb. As you may know, the Black Riders are stilted stuntmen with a horsehead and rear attached to them, the black cloak trailing over the back of the horse. Truly chilling in a way that PJs Nazgul failed to be (for me at any rate). The attack of the Nazgul takes place in the Prancing pony instead of Weathertop and this works nicely. Finally the Ford of the Bruinen is achieved without the use of Asfaloth but with clever use of projections and white cloth which formed a cone of "water" around the Nazgul.
I may have this out of order, but Sarumans imprisonment of Gandalf was achieved with simple light and sound effects. When Gandalf attempts to leave, we hear a sort of "clang" and a cone of light spotlights him "trapping" him. Also, from a story point of view, Saruman strongly plays up the whole "pretending to serve Sauron" angle as opposed to PJs "servant of Sauron" and Tolkiens "seeking to become the new Sauron". I'm not sure how well that worked cause it sounded a bit too sensible and I found myself wondering exactly what Gandalfs objection the the plan was.
The escape from Orthanc was simply recounted by Gandalf, after Arwen sings a pointless (if very nice) song at Frodo's bedside. Then we had the council of Elrond, where Boromir, with a strange Scottish accent, informs us that his Father, the "Steward of Men", has fallen into a strange enchantment and no longer has any hope. After an initial WTF? moment I could see the benefit in combining Denethor and Theoden into one single character for dramatic purposes, but it does lead to the unfortunate loss of Wormtongue and of course Eowyn.
Moria was achieved with the use of pillars made from chain and bars. I liked the look, but missed the sense of scale. Gandalfs fall was troublesome. The setup was fantastic as we saw the first part of his confrontation from the Balrog's perspective. Looking at the brightly lit Gandalf standing on the bridge challenging something over our heads and behind us. We also had a blast of hot air and black crepe paper swirling round us like ash to immerse us further in the moment. It should have ended there, but instead the stage spun and the Balrog was revealed as a sort of deformed butterfly. Bad move. Also, Gandalfs fall was not explained as he just sort of "fell" with no apparent aid from the Balrog.
Lothlorien on the other hand was fantastic. The Elves descended from above the stage on vines and ropes, in wonderful costumes and a truly ethereal musical interpretation. Laura Michelle Kelly as Galadriel was the standout performance for me. Her temptation at the hands of Frodo was superbly delivered.
The breaking of the Fellowship at Parth Galen was well done, with a magnificent moment for Frodo on Amon Hen. The Eye, which had not appeared till now filled the back cyc and dwarfed poor Frodo. Wonderful. Boromirs death was ok, but the other hobbits simply ran off into Fangorn rather than being captured and chased.
Less said about the Ents the better. The Physical representation was ok, if not brilliant, but the characterisation was just wrong. We got a rushed scene that ran something like "We are Ents, we are not hasty" "But you have to help us they're killing trees" "Ok so...". Lame.
The destruction of Isengard was not shown, we simply had a battle with Orcs on the revolving stage followed by Gandalf saying "Look, the Ents have arrived". This is as good a place as any to explain the stage floor mechanics. The stage consisted of three concentric revolves, each of which was split in sections, and each of which could be raised and lowered independantly. Also each revolve was capable of independant movement clockwise and anti-clockwise at different speeds. This allowed for a myriad of dynamic combinations as the characters could, for example, walk up the outer ring in a climbing action as the moving revolve kept them centre stage, then move to the middle ring, moving in another direction and perhaps stepping down in stages. Hard to describe, but very, very effective.
The orcs wore spring loaded stilts that allowed them to bound across the stage and even at times into the audience. Some also had blades on their arms which allowed them to move about on all fours in a creepy insect like fashion. The battles here was interesting to watch and not overly extended. As I said, it culminated with the offstage arrival of the Ents and the breaking of Sarumans staff. I was hoping for a little more here, but he basically just walked off to go meddle with the hobbits.
Gollums entrance was brilliant. Headfirst down the front cyc from the top of the stage. Very physical performance. Great stuff. Michael Thierrault, who played the role in Toronto also played it in London. He jack-knifes his body, twisting as turning as an external manifestation of his inner psyche as his dual personalities each take control. I was exhausted just watching him.
It was at this point that the show started to attempt suddenly to change tack and become a character driven piece. After the driving narrative of the previous hour and a half, its a hard thing to ask your audience to suddenly stop and smell the roses. That said, one of my favourite scenes in the show came here. Oh, and Faramir fans, if Theoden and Eowyn get cut do you really expect Faramir to survive? Well, he didn't.
Instead we get a brief exposition of Gollum swearing to serve the master of the precious, then more or less a straight cut to the stairs of Cirith Ungol. This was a lovely moment as Frodo and Sam sing a song of the old tales, wondering if they will ever be part of those songs. As Sam falls asleep Frodo sings softly of "stouthearted Sam... holding my life in his hands" Lovely. Here's a clip for those who might be interested:
Frodo and Sam
It follows straight into Gollums big scene where he debates whether or not to cheat the hobbits, into his decision to take them "to her". Most of this can be seen in the clip below, but the London version was slightly different, with us seeing Gollums almost change of heart as he gazes at Frodo, being interrupted by Sams "sneaking" line.
Gollum
Aragorns arrival in Gondor was a bit disappointing. He basically went up to the nameless "Steward of Men", who ranted a bit about there being no hope for men because the old kings were all gone. Aragorn promptly whips out his sword and says "Aha!", and the Steward of Men is suddenly cured. "What should we do?" he asks, and Aragorn says, "Lets go challenge him at the gates of Mordor!"
Erm, ok. Just a tad rushed. Now I would forgive the rushed nature of this as a necessary evil in compressing the storyline were it not for the fact that its almost immediately followed by an Aragorn/Arwen power ballad. You know, if you're going to challenge the conventions of theatre in a groundbreaking new way, its kind of pointless to try and shoehorn in a standard theatrical "Song that goes like this".
Somewhere around now we have Shelob, who was a fantastic giant puppet, again very stylised. Each leg was manipulated by a cast member, who made no attempt to hide themselves. Instead it was very much in the style of "theatre sans fils" where you are asked to simply ignore the puppeteers and watch the action. Worked very well, and Sam had his moment, as did the phial of Galadriel.
Sam takes the ring, thinking Frodo dead, but Frodo wakes almost immediately, making Sam look like an opportunistic bastard, which Gollum naturally points out. I can't remember exactly how this worked, but I remember thinking it was a little weak.
Anyway, they get to the cracks of doom (with no "I can carry you" moment) Frodo refuses to destroy the ring, and in an unusual move Gollum seems to repent, take the ring and throw himself in the fire. I can't swear that this was the intention, but I think thats what was being suggested. Initially I thought the cracks of doom were a bit of an anticlimax, but they made up for it with a nice theatrical effect. As Gollum threw himself into a hole onstage, the entire playing area was washed in a red light and a Gollum double fell from the top of the stage, somersaulting slowly while calling out "My! Precious!".
No attempt was made to show the Eagles, so we cut straight to the Coronation and then to the Scouring of the Shire. Well, sort of. They arrived back to find the Shire destroyed and Saruman conveniently gone. Sam used his box of earth to heal the Shire and Hobbits came out and decked the stage in flowers.
Finally we had Frodo's departure from the Grey Havens with Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Bilbo. This was touching and there were more than a few tears shed, but I can't honestly say that the weight of my own knowledge of the backstory didn't inform that sentiment. Would I have felt the emotion without knowing the story before going in? I don't know.
This review reads back a bit critical, but I really think they did a wonderful job of getting the heart of the story up there on stage. All in all, a spectacular production, and one I defeinitley want to see again, but one that I fear still needs tweaking if its to survive on the West End alongside such heavyweights as les Miserables and Wicked.
Here's a trailer of the Toronto version that shows much of what I mentioned.
My apologies for any inaccuracies as I writing this from memory and its been a week since the show.