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One-Man Lord of The Rings Comes to Chicago
nomadicpuma writes "In tandem with the return of the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy to Chicago (covered on Slashdot) is a new show giving the Lord of the Rings trilogy the same treatment. The One-Man Lord of the Rings, a performance of all three books by one actor in 60 minutes, will also be showing at the Apollo Theater through February 14, and by all indications looks to be similarly excellent."
Well, this has got to be a true role model for movie geeks out there. I remember in elementary school that reciting The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was impressive. I could actually recite the whole thing word for word at 10 years old. If he could do that for LOTR, that is, word for word. I'll be impressed.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
turn MY mental illness into a crowd-pleasing source of income, I'd do it, too.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
With all the geeks making one man shows, it seems that the next logical step will be the one-man premeir of "self-love:. Heck, there're probably enough "actors" for a simultaneous nation-wide release
Potential Reviews by the Pundits (apologies in advance): "His one man show is the one ring to rule them all!" "The acting dwarfs any other performance of LOTRs" "This one man does the work of elven!" "Mordor, She Wrote!" "His performance was so good, I could write an entire Gollum about it!"
Same way they do "the complete works of Shakespeare" in 60 minutes. They cut out major chunks, and just get the gist of it. They usually do it in a humorous way as well. I don't think this is intended to be a word-for-word rendition, because if it was, he would have to be talking so fast no one would understand a word he was saying and the play would suck.
I bet he leaves out Tom Bombadil too.
If its only one man, then who is going to carry Frodo?
Peter: "I will now recite all fifty states in a quarter of a second: YELP!"
Lois: "Peter, that was just a loud barking noise!"
The One-Man Lord of the Rings, a performance of all three books by one actor in 60 minutes
Reminds me of the improv game "Countdown."
You have a scene, and you progressivly reduce the time for that scene. Usually it's something like 5 min, 2 min, etc. where each time it gets shorter and more frantic, all the way down to one second, where it's basically one actor saying a single word.
So, you have 9+ hours of movies condenced to one hour.
Then it's Lord of the Rings in 15 min.
Lord of the Rings in 5 min.
Lord of the Rings in 1 min.
Lord of the Rings in 30 s.
Lord of the Rings in 10 s.
And finally, Lord of the Rings in 1 second.
MY PRECIOUS!!!
You see him grab a scrubbing brush and start feaverishly brushing a toilet.
You see, his version of the book had a typo. The "cleansing of the shite" scene was taken literally.
liqbase
Try 12 hours. You're missing the "Extended-Super-Duper-I-Have-No-Life" DVD edition.
" edition.
Well, for some people it's the "Extended-Super-Duper-Just-Scored-A-Quarter-Ounce
birthday...ring...war..destroy...mordor..gollum... finger. The End.
Though technically, it's a company and not just one dude, The Reduced Shakespeare Company is pretty good at this sort of thing, too. By all means, if you get a chance to see them, do so. All 37 plays in 97 minutes, not bad!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I've seen few things which suck as bad as this in my life.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
From the smeagol-and-gollum-in-the-same-body dept
Err... they are in the same body anyway.
Colin
I hardly think Matrix should go anywhere near the same level as Star Wars and LOTR. It doesnt have a Decipher-produced CCG.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
I don't know why you'd want to see some loser play with himself on stage for an hour, but if that's the way you swing more power to you.
Anyway, I saw a performance of One Man Star Wars at the Victoria Fringe Festival in Victoria, BC, Canada. Its incredible. This guy also performed his One Man Lord of the Rings on another night, and it was just as good. The amount of energy he puts into these plays is amazing, and he's soaking with sweat by the end of the performance. He does a pretty good job with the voices, and his Gollum impression is great.
My girlfriend went to theatre school with him and we got to chatting with him after the OMSW performance, and apparently he was invited by Lucas to perform at some Star Wars convention somewhere in California in front of thousands; he was awed by the positive response.
So, before slagging him and commenting on how aweful it must be, perhaps you should STFU and STFP (see the f'n play). Anyway, if you are a fan of Star Wars I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this. I hadn't seen LotR as many times as SW, so I wasn't as familiar with the material, but I still enjoyed it. Go see it and make up your own minds.
My wife and I saw the "One Man Star Wars Trilogy" as my b-day gift to her on Dec. 19th at the Apollo Theater in Chicago (on Lincoln Ave.). The tickets were $19 each plus tax. Seating was for 175 and maybe 125 people were there on a bitterly cold 5-degree-fahrenheit Sunday afternoon.
The show was fantastic! We are relatively big star wars buffs, so the trivia contest at the start of the show was welcome. We got most of them, but several were so hard that an 11-year-old had to get it (the exact wording of Han Solo as being 'the main course' for the Ewoks).
The person doing the show (sorry, don't remember his name) was very talented. Several people sneezed, had to step out to the lobby, or otherwise 'interrupted' the show, and he acknowledged each humorously, in character and out, then picked up where he left off. This to me was the mark of someone who has paid their dues in improv theater being a very, very fast think-on-your-feet performer.
His intonations and body language were exquisite. He managed to make fun of the characters and still be true to the spirit of the show quite effectively. We had a wonderful night of it, a very funny and very worthwhile show!
At the end of the evening, he gave us a preview by doing Golum ("precious") and we knew it would also be a great show.
This is high praise from me. I've seen quite a bit of improv and small-performance theater due to a friend being in the scene and being invited to a variety of performances.
Just my 5 cents. We'll see him again almost assuredly. I hope he makes a good DVD deal recording his performance.
-- Kevin
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I'm pretty sure it's the same guy... I saw the One-Man Lord of the Rings at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival (like, two years ago...phhbbbbt to Chicago) and this guy is amazing. He works up a real good sweat running around, doing all the voice and physical stunts. At one point there was even a baby making distracting sounds in the audience, and he used the sounds as effects to add to his performance. The man is on speed or something, go see him if you can.
Yup! He's done this show a few times in Vancouver, and I've seen it no less than 3 times. It is truly hilarious and cool. He's spot-on with the voices and facial expressions, and he only injects enough humour to be funny without being tiring, with stuff like nods to where you're supposed to change DVDs if you're watching the extended versions, a one-liner about the Silmarillion, and a quick reference to whether or not Sam and Frodo are gay, for example.
In my opinion, he does a better job of this than Star Wars...and he hits just about every detail that immediately comes to mind.
Anyway, just my $0.02
umdesch4
I saw this at the Edmonton Fringe Festival this past summer, and as a devoted LOTR fan, I have to admit, it was AWESOME. One caveat -- the play I saw was an adaptation of Peter Jackson's movies, not of the books themselves, so be prepared for the same changes as in the movies. The videos just don't do it justice.... If you have a chance, go see this. You will not be sorry. The bigger fan you are, the more you'll appreciate the little jokes, the sideways glances, the amazing characterizations. The casual LOTR fans left amused, but not moved. I only wish that I could have seen it more than once.