L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Deploring the Rings

September 30, 2007 on 9:31 am | In Arts, General Musing, Travel |

In case you missed it, they made a musical of Lord of the Rings. And if you did miss it, you might possibly want to just keep it that way. We saw it last night at the Drury Lane Theatre by Covent Garden in London’s West End.

My first reaction, on hearing the attempt had been made was, “wait… what?” How could the sweeping story that took three long novels be told in a single sitting - with song and dance numbers? I’m here to tell you, it hasn’t happened so far.

The story was so telescoped that, aside from a few tender moments between Frodo and Sam, the characters could do little more than shout, stentoriously declaim or give backstory. The acting was wooden - even amateurish in places (shame on you Elrond), even beyond the limitations of the script. In the best musicals, the songs either move the story forward (Cabaret, Chicago) or are musically so memorable as to be worth the stop (West Side Story). In the worse musicals, they are interruptions where everything stops so an obligatory song can be delivered. The songs in this show were not only forgettable (there was one nice one by Sam, longing to sit by the fireside) but committed the sin of stopping the story dead in its tracks every damn time.

The star of the show was the staging. The scale is staggering - a £1million, 40-ton rotating stage lifts and falls in 17 different sections, 50 actors, 19 musicians, 60 crew working behind the scenes for every performance, 504 costumes and 256 costume changes each show, for starters. The staging extends to the first balcony, where we were seated. There was smoke, lasers, orcs in the aisles. Pippin leapt directly over my seat. Galadriel descending into Lothlorian was pure Sarah-Brightman-meets-Cirque-du-Soleil-over-the-top. We left the theatre humming the sets. (I wish I could say that line was original, but it was too apt not to steal)

However, a friend pointed out to me that she liked the thought of being the filling in a Boromir/Faramir sandwich. It’s a tasty thought.

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