Lord of the Rings musical closing this July

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

This musical sounds very odd indeed. Why were the Orcs on crutches?

I would guess that it harks back to the fundamental problem with Tolkien that you have humans playing humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and orcs. In film you can play around with CGI, on radio you can use different voice types, in the flesh you are stuck with humans. In "Grand Opera" there are certain conventions linking vocal ranges and types to types of character - but with the different demands of musical this is not so possible. So you just have to somehow
make humans seem less human.

I think the crutches were to extend the limbs (Treebeard was a shepherd on stilts ) and give the orcs move a bit like chimpanzees - not human but not
totally alien. It was certainly quite scary ... and they were very agile. though not as impressive as Golum's head first crawl.