Bored of the Bling

Lord of the Rings: The Musical.

Not a phrase to whet a theatre-goer’s appetite, really – even one who was a Tolkien aficionado (for background, during my adolescence and teens I read and re-read his books dozens of times, bought copies of various special editions and wrote a pained, torturous high school thesis on some obscure, forgettable LOTR theme). I had paid scant attention to reports of the demise of the first stage adaptation in Toronto and certainly was not interested in seeing if the West End could make it palatable.

But Tues night found me sitting in an £80 stall seat in the magnificent Drury Lane Theatre, courtesy of a friend who had wrangled some free tickets. A magnificently thorny hedge had seemingly sprung from each side of the stage and had crept its way to the rafters and forward to engulf half the ceiling and the first two boxes. But the hobbits gambolling about the audience and the stage during the pre-show, capturing wondrously life-like fireflies were frankly, irritating. Admittedly, I have never appreciated Tolkien’s love for his daft, exasperating hobbits at the best of times.

The events onstage necessarily unfolded at a rollicking pace and needless to say, the plot’s complexities are sacrificed. Character development is minimal – there simply just isn’t enough time. The dialogue is at times risible and pure panto, but this is more likely due to the plundering of Tolkien’s vision by every fantasy novel and movie since the books’ publication. The music is unmemorable and thankfully, by the second act, is reduced to an adjunct of the plot. Perhaps, the production should have been marketed as Lord of the Rings: A Play with Music.

I had particular issues with the characterisation of Galadriel. The wisest, oldest, classiest Elven lady in Middle Earth spends much of the production warbling ‘Lothlorien’ to a tuneless pseudo-Celtic ditty, clad in a golden amazonian breastplate and translucent slitted-skirt, looking like an extra from Flash Gordon. Note to costume designer: Elven Queens don’t do Versace, dah-ling. *sniff* It must be Laurent, or Dior. At least Peter Jackson got it right, casting the ethereal Cate Blanchett (although, privately, I thought Catherine Deneuve would have been more regal and otherworldly) and cloaking her in a modest Alan Lee-inspired gown.

Twenty five million pounds was spent bringing the production to the West End. And it is clear that most of it went into the stage direction, costuming and special effects. Visually, it looks magnificent. The Black Riders, who appear in a crack of lightning, the Ents (actors on stilts) and She Lob (operated, oddly for a production where magic seems to be run of the mill, by black robed puppeteers) stunning. The orcs are also oddly enticing, springing and leaping about the stage (and the audience, during a second act intermission) on shortened crutches and poweriser jumping stilts. Much of the action takes place in the air: Gollum’s first appearance is made from the top of the stage from which he proceeds to crawl slowly down; the Elves are constantly hovering in mid-flight, from Lothlorien’s golden ropes, above the tidal wave which destroys the Black Riders.

But Tolkien’s novels were never wholly about the Quest, the majestic battles and the wondrous denizens of Middle Earth. The heart of the books’ success lay simply in the fact that his prose was beautiful, evocative, transporting, powerful. By the Twin Towers, Tolkien has taken a step back from the characters and allowed his story to evolve into an epic similar to his beloved Norse eddas. But despite this distance, he maintains the humanity of the characters. And it is this subtlety which suffers badly in the translation from book to stage, and (dare I say it?!) from book to screen.

Although it clocks in at almost 1.5 hours, the second act simply glazes over the emotions and internal conflict facing the characters. The last scene, where Frodo departs the Shire with the Elves, is protracted and yawn-inducing. Yes yes, I remember thinking crossly, the One Ring is destroyed, the King has returned, and the devastated Shire once again blooms with the help of Lothlorien’s soil blah blah blah – can we go now? The production may have benefitted from being split into a two-nighter, which is how the National Theatre dealt with Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. But even Pullman’s grand vision suffered a lack of heart in the novel to stage translation, amazing though it looked.

Bored of the bling? You betcha.