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One-Man Star Wars Trilogy in Chicago
Apparently the One Man, Charles Ross, was a hit at the Vancouver and Toronto Fringe Festivals in 2002. Now he's in Chicago until January 3, 2004. I took my girlfriend for her birthday, a little nervous because she's a theatre snob and a huge Star Wars geek; luckily this production satisfied her on both counts. Coming onstage all in black, with elbow pads (he has many occasions to throw himself to the ground) he sings/hums the music, does all the special effects and sound effects, and acts all the parts. Skeptical? A reviewer who saw him in Toronto said "If George Lukas [sic] could see this, he'd rediscover the secret lost in the two most recent films: that it's imagination -- and not computer driven imagery -- which made the original Star Wars so great." I couldn't agree more: every scene he performed was brilliantly evocative of the original, and the audience -- on this second night of the run, a mix of hard-core fans and newspaper reviewers with press kits -- never ceased to be surprised at how spot-on he was, the whole way through. Other reviews raved about his "energy", which I feared would mean he was like my first roommate, a huge Star Wars fan but also way too energetic for me and didn't use deodorant. But his energy just kept the show moving along and by the end his sweat showed that the choreography of the visual effects was not easy.
Every article about the show says that Mr. Ross has seen the Trilogy "over 500 times", and his performance leaves little room for doubt on this point, but those who have also seen it as many times may find a few quibbles -- every now and then, reciting a memorable line, he changes it just a little, which would sometimes break my immersion in the world he created, but only for a moment. It did take a little time to get warmed up to him, but at 20 minutes per movie, he gets up to speed fast, so by the time he had Luke sullenly watching the double sunset on Tatooine, I -- and the rest of the audience -- was putty in his hands.
I highly recommend that anyone in the Midwest take a chance on this show. It's only an hour long, so if you're a total loser who hates it, you won't be stuck there for as long as you were stuck in The Phantom Menace. And, don't worry, the prequels never come up in the show: this is only the Real Star Wars."
No doubt his relatives -- after being subjected to little Charlie's performances every holiday dinner, year after year -- put up the money to produce this show.
At least it gets him out of the house ;-)
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
His name wasn't Ghyslain was it?
...the Puppetry of the Penis guys didn't think of this first.
"Is that supposed to be...Jabba?! Oh man *retch*"
RW
I saw a show just l like this in London.. a two man re-enactment of all of Shakespeare's plays done very rapidly. This was very funny. I wonder who started this genre? Maybe bards used to sing the Illiad super fast to entertain each other?
I find myself wondering at the validity of that statement for about 5 seconds.
Quite how one could be both a theare snob and star wars - ahen - person - entirely slips my well defined features.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
It's hard to imagine one guy on stage singing "doo-dooo-da-da-da-deeeee-dooo-da-da-da-deeeee-doo o..." and reciting "Luke, I am your father," being at all decent.
.torrent to prove me wrong?
This has got to be a joke, right?
Anyone have a
Chicago is Midwest now? I must have missed something here...
Perhaps it was geography class.
Visit their website and type midwest in the search box. Enjoy several hundred references to Chicago being in the midwest.
Ok, Magellan. If Chicago isn't in the Midwest, perhaps you'd like to share with the rest of us just exactly where the fsck you think it is?
Yes and ther are 50 states and we live in the northern hemisphere.
Wow the highschool you went to was worthless...
Or, I'm betting you're one of those kids that rode the short bus and wore a helmet.... yeah...
No, not the football players, the ones that were smarter.... special ed!
Frederic Martin gave a one-man live radio show parody of both Star Wars Prequel movies, on the regional french radio OuiFM. This guy has a thousand different voices, and he sings very well. And the result was a lot, lot more enjoyable than the original. He also did the same with Spiderman, XMen, Xmen2, XXX, XXX2, Star Trek, Daredevil, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, UFO Robot Grendizer, the Fantastic Four, The Jungle Book, Matrix Reloaded, Austin Powers: the Spy who shagged me, Men in Black, the Bible (!), Air Force One, Gladiator, etc...
If you understand fast-spoken slang French, you can find them on emule with the keyword "LMDMF".
Maybe we deserve this world ?
The name "Reduced Shakespeare Company" (RSC) is itself kind of a spoof on the well-known Royal Shakespeare Company (also RSC). I also saw the show in London and highly recommend it. I heard when I saw it that they had done a tour of the US the year before, so maybe they will come back across the pond sometime soon.
Thanks for bringing back news for nerds...it doesn't get nerdier than this!
Take the train back home. Get home about 4 in the morning. My kid is a night owl.
Any other suggestions?
I saw this show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. It's awesome, if you go to see it, believe me you won't be disappointed.
At the festival, the show sold out most of its performances, then sold out its "pick of the fringe" shows which is reserved for the best of the plays, and was held over again (not sure if it sold out there).
Charles Ross goes through the entire 3 movies, does a fantastic job of reenacting the battle scenes (yes without any props) and touches on all the aspects of the trilogy, including all the jokes we throw around here at slashdot.
Even if you're not a big Star Wars fan, the guy's performance is something to see. Oh and, it's not the kind of boring "theater" you might be thinking of.
And he probably told his family that after he's done with the Star Wars trilogy theater version, he's gonna tackle the Lord of the Rings trilogy one-hour theater play, and then he'll do The Matrix trilogy one-hour version (this is where his slow-mo special effects stunt work will shine).
And then they probably kicked him and his computers straight out of the basement, "By God, we told you that you wouldn't live at home forever, no matter how much of a nerd you think you are! We found you an apartment and we'll pay the rent, just get out and take your caffeinated beverages with you!"
I was one of the fortunate few who saw Star Drek , a musical takeoff featuring funny songs, nailed characterizations and cheesy special effects. The transporter beam, for example, was a handful of glitter tossed in the air under a spotlight. The show ran about a year and a half (94-95) before Paramount shut it down. Act one was the original series, act two was the next gen, with Q bringing Kirk forward in time on a bet with Picard that Kirk would be better able to cope with a plot to addict the crew to a traditional Romulan beverage called "jav-ya."
...another culture has been destooooyyyyed,
The night I saw it in Seattle the place was completedly packed, people sitting on stairs. Except there was a block of really good empty seats in one row. As the lights went down, four hooded figures shuffled in and sat in the seats. During Intermission they left, and the host came out and announced that it had been Nimoy and his friends, who were in town for one of his rare convention appearances. They had snuck in so as not to create a scene. The place went nuts.
I still remember parts of the theme song:
On boooooaaard the Enterpriiiiiiiise,
Our paaaaaants don't have any fliiiiiies...
but weeeee know Star Fleet won't be annooooooyyed,
becaaaaause,
We're Right!
Not long afterwards Paramount shut the show down on the grounds that it wasn't a parody of Star Trek, it was Star Trek. The producers had to fork over all the money they had made.
Repeat after me:
Paramount is run by soulless, clueless Assholes.
He was there *on* a date.
I've never been able to figure out the whole Star Wars/can't get date stereotype. Star Wars is a wildly popular movie with action and light romance -- something to watch with friends or a girl.
It doesn't exactly focus on "geek" topics anyway.
May we never see th
This has been done, and to equally thrilled audiences, by the Star Wars In 30 Minutes guys, who started at USC and premiered at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival (in a galaxy far, far away from George Lucas's lawyers). I saw it when it was in LA last year and it was hilarious.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Quite aside from being legally questionable and ethically bankrupt, isn't C&D-ing Shoggoth On The Roof a bit...risky? I mean, I sure wouldn't be reading the response from the Old Ones' legal team. (Does anyone doubt that the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, J.D., would be drafting counsel?)
For a taste of the horror that awaits these litigious fools, check out this 401 page from yog-sothoth.com ...
I agree. All true Sci-FI fans know that it is the Star Trek fans who have difficulty dating.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
There is an improv show in Chicago called Frodo-A-Go-Go which is supposed to do a parody of LOTR in maybe an hour and a half. It is as bad as the reviewer thought the one man Star Wars was going to be. Although seeing "Giblet" and "Legoland" become transvestites in blond wigs was amusing, the price just isn't worth it.
I ask, because back in 1997 I was the lighting/sound designer for "Jedi! A Musical Tour De Force", performed at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago.
It was the trilogy, performed in about an hour and a half (if memory serves) with heavy use of models and such to represent space battles and things -- it contained select dialogue from all three movies, and each installment of the trilogy began with the piano player singing an overture featuring the words that scrolled across the screen to open each movie.
Oh, wait. Did I mention it was a MUSICAL? Seriously. Princess Leia's "It's hard to be hard" was a particularly good Disco tune performed by the guy in drag playing Leia (there were women in the show, but not for Leia.)
My particular favorite was Obi Wan's climactic ode to the Force, "Feel The Flow". Feel the flow/feel it from above and below/feel it in every mountain stream/everywhere you go/feel the force/it will never lead you off course...and so on and so on. I actually have the cast recording on a CD-R at home.
So anyway -- the point of all this is, Lucas shut us down with a cease and desist. Hopefully this guy won't suffer the same fate.
It's odd---you're the second person I've seen refer to Episode 3 as if you've already seen it. I have come to the conclusion that there's a time-traveling group of movie connoisseurs who frequent slashdot. I have only one thing to say to you: if you give me a time machine, I'll keep quiet about it.
The term "midwest" comes from a time when the "west" was a lot further east than it is now. Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and I believe Michigan and Wisconsin all fall within the area of the "midwest". The usual way around the fact that there's a lot more west than there used to be is to term things like Kansas and the Dakotas as being either "central" or "plains" states.
So once upon a time, it made perfect sense - and the name just stuck.
~ Leilah