Ok, so I saw the musical about a month ago... and here's my shortish SPOILERISH review:
Hobbits: The Hobbits were handled the best out of any of the characters. They took some time in the beginning to set up a little background about them and to give you a good idea of what kind of people they were. Their spirit and care free nature was well shown. Frodo and Sam's relationship didn't get explained much in the beginning, but they were the best represented characters in the whole musical. In Mordor they had a great song about that tied into the part in the book where they are talking about the great stories and wondering if they'll ever be in one. It had a sweet melody and great lyrics... I got teary... they tied Gollum into it well, too, and showed how he used to be a Hobbit. Merry and Pippin were ok, but rushed. However, when they first joined up with Frodo and Sam they all had a great traveling song to the theme of "The Road Goes Ever On and On." Merry and Pippin did meet Treebeard, and the Ents were sort of cool, but their time on stage was brief. One thing that made fans happy too... The Scouring... it was there... but Bill Ferny played the role that Wormtongue would've otherwise played.
Elves: The second best represented. Lothlorien was great in that the whole Fellowship was blind folded (for Gimli's sake)... which was left out of the movies. Galadriel, however, was odd... it was mainly her costume. She had a lovely song about Lothlorien, though... but I think it was a wee bit too long. Arwen was handled nicely... in fact, I think the romance between her and Aragorn showed better in the musical than it did in the movie. I got teary from that too!
Men: The world of men was poorly handled. Aragorn was underdeveloped, Boromir was kinda of one dimensional, Theoden had no depth, Eowyn was there but they didn't mention any relevance to the fact of her killing the Withcking, Faramir and Denethor were non existant because they never went to Gondor. There was only one battle that was kind of a combination of Helm's Deep and the Black Gates. It was handled ok, but still... no depth.
Technical stuff: The puppetry was great! Shelob was handled very well... the Black Riders were awesome looking... The Balrog had nice effects, but had it not been for the effects I think it would've looked like a giant pinata.
Other characters: I didn't like Gandalf. Brent Carver is a fine actor and I've always wanted to see him in something, but he wasn't Gandalf... but I could've told you that when he was first announced as being cast in that role. Legolas and Gimli were just there because they sorta had to be... nothing much about them.
That's it, in a nutshell... I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone has about it.
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