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LOTR to Become a London Musical
PenguinRadio writes "Sky is reporting that Lord of the Rings will become 'the most expensive musical ever seen in London', sporting a price tag of 8 million pounds and a running time of nearly 3 and 1/2 hours."
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seriously, what? this is as dumb as 'Doonsbury on Ice'. All they need is a Rick Wakeman score to ensure that noone will want to remember this existed 5 years from now.
Rather surprisingly, they managed to turn the almost-as-complex His Dark Materials trilogy into what is, by all accounts, a fantastic stage show ... I'll certainly be getting tickets to see this...
Score:-1, Funny
Gollum crooning to the ring in his cave...
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
/Obvious
I can't imagine elves jumping around a stage singing about forest like or whatever...
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
LOTR RINGS TO BE MUSICAL
Fresh from its runaway success at the Oscars, fantasy epic Lord of the Rings is set to hit the stage as a lavish musical, reports say.
Producers are planning to turn the book series into the most expensive musical ever seen in London, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
News of the musical version comes weeks after the final film installment of the trilogy, Return Of The King, won 11 Academy Awards.
The 8m production will see dozens of actors portray hobbits, elves, wizards and orcs in complex battle scenes.
"I have been in theatre for 25 years and I know the power of theatre in telling epic stories," said co-producer Kevin Wallace, a former collaborator of successful stage composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
"I believe that we will be able to make a version of The Lord of the Rings that will be a brilliant piece," he told the newspaper.
The show, to open next year, would last a mammoth three and a half hours, Wallace said.
"If Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth and tell the story of the entire trilogy over that time," he said.
The three books in the Lord of the Rings series, chronicling the struggle between good and evil in Middle Earth, were written by
British author JRR Tolkien from 1954-55 and have proved enduringly popular ever since.
Nope. April 1st isn't for another 18 days. Nice try though.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
How long before people start having a backlash against LOTRs?
4000 recent awards, the actors are plastered on every talk show, multiple console games, 3 recent highly pushed movies --shouldn't they just take a breather?
Wouldn't waiting a few years and then bringing the story back in a different format be refreshing for the story?
Davak
My vote for: Sarah Brightman as Arwen Nathan Lane as Sam Deborah Gibson as Galadriel Micheal Crawford as Gandalf Choosing Frodo would be difficult Are the actors going to have be on their kness the whole performance?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
(Courtesy of Daily Telegraph)
I met him down in Mordor, he gave me the eye -
Da do Sauron-ron, da do Sauron,
And then he nearly slayed me, what a wicked guy!
Da do Sauron-ron, da do Sauron.
-CH
Now I'm no musical afficionado, having only been to one London musical - We Will Rock You - but there's a certain magic (no pun intended) I experienced that can not be acheived through film (that's not to say films are inferior, it's more of an apples and oranges comparison). With a big budget like that, I'm sure the stage props, effects and costumes will be fantastic and will portray the LOTR trilogy through yet another medium. Sure, the purists might complain that Bombadil's left foot was uncharacteristically two inches too far to the right, but for the fans that actually see natural light, then they'll be in for a treat.
What's next, a ten part HBO miniseries?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Adapting LotR to anything is a bold undertaking. Peter Jackson took the enormous risk to turn it into a movie trilogy, and succeeded, IMO, in the sense that apparently most avoid Tolkien fans seem to approve of his work, even though there are concerns about "streamlining" or "cutting corners" here and there. And I think Jackson deserves an enormous amount of credit for this.
Now, 10 hours of movies are yet quite different from 3 hours of musical. To bring this to the stage in a successful manner, a lot of streamlining and cutting will have to be done, with a tremendous risk of falling short of the original. I will admit that I was sceptical about the movies, and Jackson proved me wrong. I am even more sceptical here.
There are times where it's wise not to tempt fate, and pass on some challenges, instead of taking your shot at it and fail. Come up with your own original story and knockyourself out, no problem. But taint the work of Tolkien with a failed attempt of an adaptation, and people will remember you for a long time...
I think I speak for everyone here when I say "That's the worst idea I've ever heard, and I don't want to play."
Hobbit's scampering about on the stage in a chorus line?
The deadly dance of the orcs?
Sam's love ballad to Frodo?
I can just envision Gandalf dancing, tossing away his hat and staff for a top hat and cane.
There are so many reasons this needs to NOT happen.
I've got a theory, that it's a Nazgul, A dancing Nazgul. No, something isn't right there.
(Frodo)
I've got a theory, that Bilbo is dreamin' And we're all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare.
(Aragorn)
I've got a theory we should work this out.
(The Fellowship except Gandalf)
It's getting eerie, what's this cheery singing all about?
(Gimli)
It could be Elves, some evil Elves. Which is ridiculous 'cause Elves they were persecuted wicked good and loved Middle Earth and fairie power and I'll be over here.
(Merry)
I've got a theory, it could be lunchtime...
[crickets chirping]
Dude, where's my packet?
...when the Fellowship sings "The Hills are Alive..." on the slopes of Carhadras?
Got mead?
"Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth..."
Oy veh...Note that putting the story of Henry IV on stage took Shakespeare two very long plays-- Henry IV parts one and two together are over seven hours, uncut. Even then, the scope of the plays is much smaller than the War of the Ring. Yes, the historical backdrop of Henry IV is a series of wars and rebellions that cover most of England as well as Brittany, but the realy story is much smaller. It's about the (contested) king, his son Hal, and a few other key court figures suh as Hotspur and Falstaff. The real plot is the search for honor by these characters, NOT the wars and the fate of the kingdom. Anyway, to cover the full scope of the war/political story, you have to include two more plays, Richard II and Henry V, which would bring the stage running time to over twelve hours.
So Shakespeare did NOT put "all England" on stage in Henry IV...he was much too smart to try that. Pity the West End producers can't learn from the Bard.
After all, Legolas's antics were not far off....
/. Where the truth
they do it every year at the Bayreuth festival, don't they.
Oh wait - that's Wagner's Ring cycle.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
If it doesn't have Leonard Nimoy singing the ballad of Bilbo Baggins, it will fail for sure.
I once read an interview with comic book author Alan Moore in which the interviewer asked him how he felt about his comics being "ruined" by dismal, piece-of-crap movie adaptations (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the like).
He responded. "Ruined my books? No, they're fine, they're right over there on the shelf."
I feel the same way about this. Certainly it has every chance of being a dismal, laughable production, but the original source material has survived worse lambasting already at the hands of the Harvard Lampoon and a thousand poor imitators writing ten-book doorstop epics in homage to Tolkien. The original LOTR material is going to be just fine.
what's next? turning it into a book?
I think Mel Gibson ought to direct a musical of "The Silmarillion" done entirely in Elvish. Estimated running time: 13 hours!
That ought to cure the general public of their love for Tolkien's material in a big hurry!
to be recited by a middle earthsman with a British accent
There once was a hobbit named Smeegle
This Hobbit sure turned rather evil
He beheld that darned ring
Yes, that horrid thing
That made desparate humans to wheedle
We must destroy that curse
Nothing could be worse
Than a crazy wizzard
With eyes like a lizzard
For evil, he has a thirst
I'll take my axe and you your bow,
And on this mission we'll go
We'll cross distant lands
And lend one another a hand
So let's get on with the show!
I hear Time Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber are doing the music. A snippet of the script has already leaked to the net:
Setting: Stern of ship as it sails West into the sunset.
Scene MCLXXXVIII
(Frodo stands on stool so he can be seen over stern of ship.)
FRODO SINGS:
Mem'ry
All alone in the Shire
I can smile at the old days
Life was beautiful then
I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the mem'ry live again
(Gandalf, stage left)
GANDALF SINGS:
Don't cry for me, Middle Earth
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don't keep your distance
(Chorus of elves, dwarves and men start dancing a-la Can-Can, stage right.)
CHORUS SINGS:
Frodo Baggins, Superstar
How tall are you, what have you sacrificed?
Frodo Baggins, Superstar
Do you think you're gay as they say you are?
Rankin-Bass did "The Hobbit" and "Return of the King". Remember the toe-tappers "Where there's a whip, there's a way" and "Frodo of the Nine Fingers"? And that Godawful warbling singer?
I actually think it could be decent if it's done right. Professional stage people know how to grab the audience. I've been to several Broadway shows that I just knew would be crap, and 30 minutes in, I was swinging my feet and humming along just like everybody else. Musicals have a different vocabulary than film, and they just might pull it off.
no, not Bangalore. But a place called Chennai (formerly Madras). One of India's foremost composers is doing the music
The problem is that, for the most part, really epic stories are simply not endemic to the musical theatre art form. How many have there been? And, of those, how many have truly been successful? Even theatre epics, like Show Boat or Les Miserables are still pretty small in scope when compared to something The Lord of the Rings because they focus pretty pointedly on people, whereas LOTR is about big events, big stakes, and even larger plot points.
Shrinking the story down to where it would it would on the musical stage, and still leave room for the things every play needs (exposition, characterization, and, probably most importantly, songs) would be almost impossible under the best circumstances, and most of the people involved simply aren't of the proven calibre necessary to pull all this off. Sure, A.R. Rahman had some kind of a success with Bombay Dreams, but what in Matthew Warchus's resume suggests he's even remotely qualified to handle something on this scale? He's talented, yes, but not with material of this size. His solution to staging one of Broadway's most traditionally opulent musicals--Follies--on Broadway in 2001 was to strip away everything that made it so oversized and, in its original production, so thrilling. If you do that with The Lord of the Rings, what's left?
So, while I wish them the best of luck, they're really facing a difficult struggle, and I'm not sure they will be able to pull it off. Under most circumstances, I would suggest that they rework the idea as an opera, or perhaps a series of operas, but of course, Richard Wagner already did that with Der Ring des Nibeluengen, and the less comparison The Lord of the Rings has with that, the better, I think. It will be unavoidable in any case, but critics (and audiences) will have their knives sharpened going into this, and it will have to be even that much better to win them over. I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the challenges facing the creators of this musical.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
There is an official website: www.thelordoftheringsmusical.com
That info aside, I know some of the people working on this and they are truly passionate fans of the book. I know nothing about the musical itself, but I'm more than willing to remain open-minded about it's quality until I learn more.
ObDisclosure: I work on Tolkien licensed products.