Curtain to close on Lord of the Rings in Toronto

[Lurker]

Curtain to close on Lord of the Rings in Toronto
Updated Wed. Jun. 28 2006 11:23 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The mammoth stage incarnation of The Lord of the Rings, which opened in March to much fanfare but little critical acclaim, will end its run in Toronto just three months after its premiere.

Producer Kevin Wallace announced Wednesday the production will close Sept. 3 before it moves on to the prestigious Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London next year.

It seems audience numbers just weren't healthy enough to keep the show running past Labour Day -- and Wallace blamed negative messages from local critics for hurting ticket sales.

"If the critics think they don't have power, believe me they do," Wallace told a Toronto news conference.

"So when you're going to spend the $120 (the price of the best seat), you do need to have the affirmation, the message -- and there is no doubt that we have struggled with a mixed message."

Wallace said response from London critics was much more favourable, and he called the city the show's "spiritual home."

The news comes after the $29-million musical, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's famed fantasy trilogy, won seven Dora Mavor Moore awards honouring theatre productions on Monday.

Wallace said a revamped version of the show will open in London on May 9, 2007. More details will be announced in September, but Wallace revealed that some members of the Toronto company will join that production.

Believed to be the most expensive theatre production ever mounted, The Lord of the Rings seemed to impress with its big-budget staging, costumes and lighting.

But as a theatre piece, it was met with harsh critical reception.

According to New York Times critic Ben Brantley: "Everyone and everything winds up lost in this ... adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's cult-inspiring trilogy of fantasy novels. That includes plot, character and the patience of most ordinary theatregoers."

Kamal Al-Solaylee of The Globe and Mail complained: "The Lord of the Rings may boast of its record-breaking cost, but it still looks a lot like unfinished business."

The Associated Press wasn't any kinder: "Deciphering the story, adapted by Shaun McKenna and director Matthew Warchus, may be the hardest part of a theatregoer's job. . . . The nearly 60 actors on stage have trouble making much of an impression."

The Lord of the Rings clocks in at three hours and 30 minutes and features: 55 cast members, 500 costumes, fight scenes and acrobatics performed on top a 36-tonne, computer-controlled stage floor featuring 17 elevators capable of spinning.

City officials were hoping the musical would revive Toronto's entertainment and tourist industries, which were crippled by the SARS scare in 2003.

"It was supposed to be the be all and end all of theatre in Toronto, bringing back theatre after SARS had taken it away in Toronto, but it's not to be," said CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney.

Toronto Mayor David Miller blamed the show's closing on the reluctance of Americans to travel in large numbers in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney
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[aldaron]

My wife said I just think it's not worth the (insert expensive ticket amount here) that I paid for the show the first time around. :P

I saw it. No, not worth the money if you're a Tolkien fan, but worth it to see the guy do Gollum. He should have bowed last.

Tolkien himself was right. The story is just too big to be done in a theater setting, at least all at once. The scene at Sammath Sour took all of 20 seconds, and then Gandalf just walked up to them and escorted them away. You can extrapolote for the rest of it, remembering they needed ten misutes for the Dance Scene at the Prancing Pony because it's a MUSICAL and you have to have dancing. No Faramir, no Éomer.

And they mispronounced Sauron (they all said "Sore-on") plus repeating some other mispronunciations from the movies. At least they restored the Scouring of the Shire, and the dance music was good.

Aldaron

[Alatar]

Thats the second time I've heard this said. Please tell me what was mispronounced in the Movies. I thought the pronunciations were pretty much spot on.

[Jude]

A couple of times Faramir was pronounced "Fair - a -mir". Did you notice that?

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

At least in Jackson's film they didn't flit back and forth between "Saruman" and "Aruman" like in that certain never-completed-animated-film-that-was-released-in-the-late-1970s-and-shall-remain-nameless.

Since this stage production featured singing and dancing, there's no excuse for cutting out Bombadil. Heck, he should have been the STAR!

[aldaron]

Please tell me what was mispronounced in the Movies.

This is months old now but when you're slaving on the update of your Tolkien opera in hope that someday the Estate will let you produce it properly other things like forum topics get knocked out of your Butterbur-like head. Meaning mine. But now it's Sol Invictus Day and my wife isn't up yet, so I'll try to remember. Well, one thing I didn't like in the movie in terms of words was that the Hobbits who knew Aragorn as Strider kept calling him Aragorn. But that's not pronunciation. How about this, though it's not stated in the LOTR proper: in the Letters of JRRT book, Tolkien said the Orcs should not talk in cockney or other "low-class" accents, and that's exactly what Jackson had them do.

OK, referring to my notes taken immediately after attending, the Proto-Stoors Sméagol and Déagol, which should be SMEH-ah-gol and DEH-ah-gol were rendered Smeegle and Deegle. That was the most egregious one. I have to say they really tried, they did so much better than the not-to-be-named excrescence by Mr. B (which I was at the premiere screening of, at the Ziegfeld theater in NYC: being a NY resident at the time how could I not, in 1978, after I'd just read the trilogy for the first time?)

They weren't consistent with the Sindarin i sound, sometimes Mih-nas Tih-rihth (Gandalf), sometimes Eären-deel (Elrond) but I'm not any more totally clear about how that should be handled, just that it should be consistent. I think the rule was, if it's accented, it's long, otherwise it's short.

I believe Denethor said "Mith-ran-deer" instead of "Mith-rahn-deer" but I could be mistaken.

I think since it has a circumflex on it, the "u" in Udûn (I hope my diacriticals are rendering properly) should be more like the "oo" in book (I'm talking eastern American accent here, or "standard" British) and not the "oo" in "soon" but since Gandalf was bellowing at the top of his voice I would excuse it. (talking to the Balrog)

I'm sure if they'd used more Elvish they'd have made more mistakes but they stayed with the English version of a lot of names for obvious (other) reasons.

I'm deep into LEITHIAN right now and I'd have to watch the movies again to note any other errors, but really they did quite well. I didn't mean to imply, by lambasting the Musical people, that the Jackson people did badly.

Aldaron