Theater captures 'Rings' kingdom Stage
By Michael Kuchwara
Associated Press
TORONTO – In two shabby warehouses on the edge of the Don River Valley, a determined, some might say foolhardy, band of theatrical adventurers tries to conquer Middle-earth.
At 185 Eastern Ave., a giant revolve – with 17 lifts – is in place as Hobbits and Elves scurry up and down the gargantuan steel structure. Upstairs, a triumphant, majestic melody thunders. A few doors away, at 153 Eastern, the Battle of Mordor rages across a room that could fit a jumbo jet.
Bit by expensive bit a lavish stage version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" comes to life.
If Tolkien's three-part saga about that elusive ring is one of those mammoth, legendary adventures, a quest to end all quests, it has nothing on the task of turning the author's lengthy, meticulously detailed world into a piece of theater.
Yet, here it comes – a three-hour-plus adaptation of Tolkien's trilogy. Now in previews for a March 23 opening at the Princess of Wales Theatre, the show has a cast of nearly 60 actors and costs upward of $23 million – and counting. By comparison, "The Phantom of the Opera," which cost a record $8 million when it opened on Broadway in 1988, would have a $12 million price tag today.
And the production has some unusual financial backing, including the provincial government of Ontario, which has contributed $2.5 million to the show's budget. And if "The Lord of the Rings" is a success in Toronto, London's West End and Broadway will beckon.
Like all epic journeys, this one began with the tenacious vision of one man – a quiet, unassuming Irishman from Limmerick named Kevin Wallace. This one-time actor found his way into producing after working for Andrew Lloyd Webber, a man who knows a little something about spectacle himself.
Wallace, however, didn't have the original idea for the stage version of "The Lord of the Rings." A musical adaptation had been floating around since the late 1990s. It was this take on Tolkien's novels that first sparked his interest, even before the phenomenal success of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy that was released over a three-year period, starting in 2001.
"We're not putting the films on stage. We're putting the books on stage," Wallace says of Tolkien's three novels that chronicle the adventure of Frodo, Sam, Gollum, Gandalf the magician, Aragorn, Arwen and more.
That draft was created by book writer and lyricist Shaun McKenna, a jovial, articulate Englishman whose eclectic subjects for other shows have included the celebrated Swiss miss Heidi and French painter Toulouse Lautrec. Written in the late 1990s, this "Rings" musical adaptation "always was about to happen but never did," McKenna says.
But if there is one thing this production is not, it is not a musical, Wallace emphasizes. But the show is filled with music – a score supplied by Bollywood composer A.R. Rahman and a Finnish folk group called Varttina, consisting of three female singers and six musicians.
Rob Howell, who designed the sets and costumes, was presented with a very specific challenge: how to do justice to the book while not aping the look of the film or the books' illustrations.
He knew it was impossible to put everything on stage, but consoled himself knowing "there is an acceptance by the audience that they are going to be invited to play with their imaginations." The stage will not be empty, though. While trying not to give away too much of what the show will look like, he calls the design "very organic, an environmental production."
But even organic doesn't come cheap.
"The audience should feel when they come into the theater that they are taking part in something that has been going on for many thousands of years," he says. "The story will feel like it is already in progress and they are joining in. They will be coming into the same space that the Hobbits inhabit. You have no option but to join in."
The mammoth turntable set – part of more than 40 tons of scenery that took more than a year to build – was constructed in England, put together to be tested, then taken apart and sent by ship to Canada for installation in the Princess of Wales.
And it took time to settle on the actors who would work that scenery.
"We saw thousands of people," Warchus says. Out of more than 4,000, they settled on 55. The company showcases some of Canada's best actors, including the ethereal Brent Carver, a Tony winner for "Kiss of the Spider Woman," who plays Gandalf the magician.
Among the others: Michael Therriault, a Stratford Festival veteran, as the spectral Gollum; Richard McMillan, the original Scar in the Toronto company of "The Lion King," as the wizard Saruman; and a rising young actress named Carly Street as the lovely, half-Elven Arwen.
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Regards,
.......Sajna.
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