There's a new musical opening in Toronto: "The Lord of the Rings". Yeah. Someone made a musical stage production of this. AND it's my understanding that they compressed all three books into one. (Because it's based on the books, and not the movies.) I haven't seen this, and read only the one review in the NYTimes, which I deleted before I remembered that I wanted to link to it. But anyway according to the review it's really long and kind of confusing. Because it's a complex plot and compressing it into a three hour musical dosen't seem like nearly enough time, unless theater-goers are given Cliff-notes or something. Even the movies ended up leaving a lot out, and there were three of those. But they did keep the cool things like the Ents in it, so if you want to see dancing trees, then here's your chance. (The image, by the way, is the result of a Google Image Search, and I don't remember what website I pulled it from.)
Interesting Official Website though.. the intro is only kind of annoying but it plays well even if you have dial-up, which I do.
What's really cool is that the parodies have begun. Last night's Conan O'Brien had a parody sketch complete with a Gollum strip-tease which was hilarious. (I couldn't find images of the sketch, so the link is to the show's page.)
Color me skeptical, but is this really a good idea? Is this what the world was crying out for? Part of me really wants to see this.. another is horrifed at the thought.
At least it's not boring...
