As recently noted when reviewing David Williamson’s Don Parties On, the thing about sequels is that one is always caught between trying to assess a second installment purely on its own merits, yet inevitably feeling compelled to judge it in comparison to the original.Charles Ross’ ebullient show One Man Lord of the Rings both is and is not a sequel to his phenomenally successful One Man Star Wars Trilogy, which he has been performing around the world for a decade… and just so happens to have been one of the first productions I ever reviewed for AustralianStage.com.au. Ross’ inspiration to make a new show based on another film trilogy is obvious, and his technique here is essentially identical, whereby he performs all three films squished down into a hilarious rollercoaster ride of about an hour.
His performance is a frenetic, supercondensed re-enactment of the films, complete with striking impressions of the original actors’ voices, their dialogue either quoted or paraphrased with interjections for comedic effect, physically miming the action of everything from characters to landscapes and, perhaps most impressively, vocally reproducing the vast amount of music and sound effects featured throughout the films. For something which seems at first like a geeky party trick that’s gone wildly out of control, one is soon seduced by the sheer level of skill involved in this diverse, multifaceted mimicry of all the component parts that make up a movie from acting to score to special effects, all through the use of one man’s body and voice alone. Even just considering Ross’ feat of memory and energy by themselves, it is truly something to behold.
As technically impressive as all this is, though, is it any good? The answer is perhaps even more subjective than one might expect. This show is an unusual entity, having been described as alternately a comedy routine and a play, yet it is both, and neither. For all its performative virtuosity, on one level it very much brings to mind a magical, almost child-like game, if you have ever seen kids in a playground (or remember yourself) recreating scenes from favourite episodes of Masters of the Universe or Indiana Jones, line for line, action for action. At the same time, Ross’ act seems equally reminiscent of a familiar fanboy fervour, like that slightly over-keen dude in high school that you knew (or perhaps were) who would recite whole Monty Python sketches or Tarantino monologues word-for-word, complete with all the precise inflections and vocal mannerisms.
What Ross is doing is a kind of unique extrapolation of both of these kinds of enthusiastic activities. On the one hand while it is very funny it is simply too punctilious, too much a verbatim recreation to really qualify as parody, while at the other end of the scale the method of intense, all-encompassing reproduction of uniquely filmic elements make it too specific an evocation of the cinematic experience to be considered a normal stage adaptation. This is recitation as theatrical comedy.
(Yeah, okay, but is it any good…?!)
Well, yes, it is. It’s very, very good, both as a technical achievement, a piece of performance and, after a fashion, as an “original” idea, if only in its wholistic extremity. Its brilliance, and also its potential shortcoming, however, is in direct relation to the individual viewer’s level of familiarity with the material being mimicked.
And this is where we return to the issue of the show being a “sequel” to One Man Star Wars Trilogy.
One of the main reasons Ross’ original show has been so phenomenally successful is that Star Wars is, well, STAR WARS. For virtually anyone under the age of fifty who has been even remotely interested in sci-fi/fantasy movies for even part of their life, the original Star Wars trilogy is a touchstone. Indeed, even people who have never actually seen the films (yes, they do exist) can involuntarily identify things like lightsabers, Yoda, the sound of Darth Vader’s rasping breath etcetera, such is the extent of these films’ cultural pervasiveness. Even before the much-debated prequels started to appear more than a decade ago, awareness of Star Wars in the popular consciousness had become entrenched, intergenerational and inescapable.
Lord of the Rings, however… not so much. To be fair, it was a massive phenomenon at the time, an almost unprecedented filmmaking enterprise and huge global hit swelling the already considerable and venerable ranks of Tolkien fandom with a fresh young legion. And yes, a lot of people at the time did say that this was going to be like the Star Wars trilogy for a new generation. Possibly so, but this has not yet become clearly evident.
Unlike the endless stream of spin-off books, television, comics and merchandising that has kept the Star Wars brand alive (and George Lucas sitting atop a larger pile of gold than Smaug) for over thirty years, there has as yet not been much momentum to perpetuate the Lord of the Rings franchise in the eight years since its conclusion. That possibly works somewhat against Ross, for as the star explains in an epilogue, it took him five years to clear the rights for this show after an initial cease-and-desist order, and such a delay means he has missed out on that period of peak interest in these films.
Perhaps public enthusiasm will be renewed upon the release of LOTR’s own prequels with the two-part adaptation of The Hobbit currently filming… or perhaps not. One thing is for sure, though – you don’t hear the ‘Rings being constantly quoted in other films and TV shows anymore, nor do you see people walking around wearing “Legolas Shot First” t-shirts.
Speaking personally, I enjoyed the show tremendously but found my experience somewhat hampered by a lower level of familiarity with and of retention of the material, having only seen the films a couple of times apiece, and not since their original release. Compared to my deeply ingrained acquaintance with Star Wars from sporadic exposure to both the films and references to them over a lifetime, my lack of equivalent recognition of the minutiae of Lord of the Rings left me frequently confused about which scenes were being enacted. This was especially prevalent with the many action sequences being recreated through the often less iconically memorable sound effects, at least compared to lightsabers and X-Wings. On several occasions I turned, puzzled, to my somewhat more obsessive companion for a whispered explanation.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that while this show will unquestionably have huge appeal for hardcore fans of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, I fear that this demographic may not be large enough to give the show quite the longevity that Ross’ Star Wars piece has enjoyed, simply due to the lesser degree of cultural saturation that the Lord of the Rings films have so far achieved. But I hope I am wrong, since Ross is a prodigiously entertaining performer and his hilariously inventive, breakneck-paced show deserves to be very successful and justly lauded.
Tim Woods Entertainment
One Man Lord of the Rings
Charles Ross
Venue: The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House
Dates: March 23 - April 3, 2011
Times: Tuesday – Friday @ 8:15pm; Saturday 3pm & 8:30pm; Sunday 3pm
Bookings: www.ticketmaster.com.au | www.sydneyoperahouse.com.au | 9250 7777
ALSO Touring
Visit: http://www.onemanlordoftherings.com.au
