Lord of the Rings musical closing this July

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I mentioned the length of the books and the films to show that the length of a 3 hour play based on such material was going to have its serious drawbacks.

Originally Posted by StW

My point about length is that making a three hour play about something which cannot possible be done in that length of time is simply a bad idea on its face. I would have no problem if they decided to dramatise a smaller portion of the larger tale, but it was folly to take something that long and make it that short.

I suppose this takes us back to my point that Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby was very successfully adapted for the stage--and we all know how long Victorian novels are! We also have the example of the successful stage adaptation of Pullman's work before us.

So the question is that the LotR adaptation should have followed a similar path, been a "two parter" theatre experience?

I don't think the drawbacks of the production were necessarily related to the length of the book and the length of time an audience will sit still on its collective duff.

At least for the Toronto production, much was made in the PR about the stage mechanics--the number of stage elevators, the massive size of the set, the stilts, the extension of the forest into the main floor orchestra pit. I seem to recall news items about how the historical Drury Lane theatre also had to be reconditioned from its authentic features and adapted for the mechanical theatrics. It seems to me that theatre has also sufferred a glut of special effects frenzy similar to what computer animation has done to film: how to do something bigger, better, more dramatic than the helicopter landing for Miss Saigon?

I had the feeling that LotR was chosen not only because it is much beloved and had the potential to be a blockbuster, but because it was "big enough" to provide opportunity to use all the gadgets and gizmos and razzmatazz. If you build it, you must use it . . .

And it was this theatricality which took up so much time, a theatricality which in fact became something akin to Tolkien's hatred of "machinery."--it was used for its own purpose and not necessarily to further the story.

jmho!