Rings musical opens to mixed reviews

The Black Riders from "The Lord of the Rings" musical, which opened to mixed reviews. Picture / Reuters

The Lord of the Rings musical, touted as the most expensive stage production yet, met mixed reviews in Toronto, Canada, over the weekend as critics applauded its leaping orcs and menacing dark riders but got lost in the tangled plots of Middle Earth.

The 55-strong cast slipped into 500 costumes and engaged in fight scenes and acrobatics atop a 40-tonne, computer-controlled stage floor which spun and rose.

Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times said, "Pity the production can't be judged exclusively on its design, it would be roundly considered a hit."

But he added that despite the show's shortcomings and desperate need to be cut, "The good news for investors is that commercially the project will surely pay off.

"Riding the coattails of Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning movie trilogy with its global gross of $3 billion and counting, this kind of parasitic extravaganza has a built-in audience. Today Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre, tomorrow London's West End, followed by the rest of the premium-ticket-buying world."

Time magazine declared the show a "definitive megamusical" while the Times of London branded it "A stirring triumph of theatrical magic." "With some fine tuning, this tale could hold its audience in total thrall," wrote the Times' Sam Marlowe.

And even the Tolkien family was impressed. "I thought it was a beautiful show and I was impressed," said Rachel Tolkien, the author's granddaughter. "Everything in the book that to me is important, or really moved me, is on the stage," she told Reuters.

Local critics were less enthused.

"'The Lord of the Rings' ... may boast of its record-breaking cost, but it still looks a lot like unfinished business," Toronto Globe and Mail critic Kamal Al-Solaylee said. "The blueprint for the adaptation, a heroic, if misguided, undertaking billed as a hybrid of drama, music and spectacle, is now in place. All it needs is an engaging storytelling approach, an emotional arc, credible performances and a more coherent musical score."

The story follows Frodo Baggins, played by James Loye, and his quest to save Middle Earth by destroying the ring of power during three acts that take the audience through the dream-like and misty Mines of Moria, Forest of Fangorn and to the final battle at Mount Doom.

The show, which is scheduled to go to London in 2007, still has a lot to prove and much will depend on the next few months, said lead producer Kevin Wallace, formerly in-house producer with Andrew Lloyd Webber's London-based The Really Useful Group.

- REUTERS