J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books have been beloved for nearly a century. Peter Jackson's movie adaptations are still watched regularly. As we speak, Prime Video is rolling out the second season of The Rings of Power, its Lord of the Rings prequel series. Why not add a stage musical to that lineup?
Way ahead of you. The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale has music by A. R. Rahman, Värttinä and Christopher Nightingale, with book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus. A version of the show premiered in London way back in 2007, so it's been around for awhile. It was revived recently and just ended a run at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. As it happens, I live in Chicago and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see it. It's going abroad soon, so you may get a chance to see it too.
But should you? Read my impressions below.
The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale review
One thing I liked about The Lord of the Rings musical is that it's a Lord of the Rings musical. I went into a theater, a bunch of actors dressed like Hobbits and elves and dwarves sang and danced in front of me for a while, and then I left. I've been familiar with these characters and events for most of my life, so to see them brought to life in a new way was fun and novel, especially if you're a fan of stage musicals like me.
I can't speak to how other theaters will mount this show, but I appreciated that the Chicago Shakespeare Theater took a literal approach. This wasn't "the Lord of the Rings but what if it was set during World War III" or anything like that. The milieu was medieval, the elves spoke Elvish, everyone used swords and rode horses. It's the story we all remember, with some music added around the edges.
In fact, calling this a musical may be a tad misleading. This isn't Les Misérables, where the performers never stop singing. Most of the time, the characters just talk to each other like they would in a play, and occasionally there will be a song. The best songs happen naturally within the world of the story, like a jaunty jig sung and danced by the whole ensemble in the Prancing Pony. I also liked that the songs didn't sound like modern pop hits shoved into The Lord of the Rings; for the most part they have an old English feel to them, like something you could imagine being sung around a London hearth in the year 1000. They fit.
Or at least most of them do. There are a couple of clunkers that seemed out of place. The first serious bump in the road for me came when the group reached Lothlórien, where Galadriel has a power ballad that sounds ripped straight from the Disney princess playbook. Generally speaking, the characters are recognizable as the people we remember from the books and movies, but Galadriel felt off to me. Actress Lauren Zakrin had one of the best singing voices in the cast, but there was no sense that this Galadriel was an ancient, powerful being possessed of a great destiny. She looked, sounded and acted like Elsa from Frozen. And I have nothing against Elsa from Frozen, but she doesn't belong in The Lord of the Rings. I had a similar problem with the Aragorn-Arwen love theme, which sounds like every other overwrought love theme from every Broadway show you've ever seen.
The best song from the musical — and the only one I've found myself humming afterward — is a simple, stripped-down tune called "Now and for Always" sung by Frodo and Sam as they near Mordor. While the hobbits wistfully remember the simple charms of the Shire even as their path grows ever darker, Gollum watches forlornly from the shadows. "Now and for Always" works as a standalone song and as a turning point for the story. It brings to life a great moment from Tolkien's books in a way that wasn't possible on the page, and it was different enough from the movies that I wasn't thinking about them. It's the high point of the play.
Why haven't you heard of The Lord of the Rings musical?
I wish there were more moments like "Now and for Always" throughout, moments that elevate the material rather than transplant it. Because while Act 1 of the musical hits pretty much every important point from The Fellowship of the Ring, it does so in a somewhat perfunctory way, like it's running down a list. Part of that is the need to fit so much story into a short runtime; the musical runs around three hours long while the movies have triple that time. If I wasn't already familiar with The Lord of the Rings, I worry I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the growing list of twists, turns, characters and lore.
To be fair, a ton of people are familiar with The Lord of the Rings; a few audience members turned up to my showing in costume. I think the show is mostly geared towards them. But that gets tricky when we reach Act 2, which combines The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Obviously there isn't enough time to fit the whole of those books into an hour and a half, so a lot gets cut. Sam, Frodo and Gollum's story is mostly left intact, but everything else gets slashed to the bone, which was a bummer for a fan like me.
I think that's mainly what's holding The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale back from becoming a big international smash on the scale of the books and movies. The play moves so quickly that only Lord of the Rings fans can fully follow it, but it also cuts so much that those same fans will be disappointed. If it wants to stand out, I think the show needs to either go its own way with the material, turning The Lord of the Rings into a story that can actually fit comfortably into a three-hour runtime; or tell the whole story over the course of two plays. That kind of things happens: Shakespeare wrote two plays about Henry IV, Angels in America is told over the course of two plays, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-play affair. The Lord of the Rings is big and famous enough to warrant that kind of treatment.
Many Partings
I want to end by praising some of the actors and talking about the production values, much of which will likely change from production to production. Although I didn't think everyone was cast perfectly, all the actors did a fine job. Spencer Davis Milford was terrific in the lead role of Frodo, and had just the right chemistry with Michael Kurowski's Sam. I was impressed by Tony Bozzuto, who gave an incredibly physical performance as Golllum, crawling around on the ground and singing while hanging off ladders. That said, I didn't like that his Gollum voice was directly lifted from the Peter Jackson movies. Like, it's cool that he can actually sing while maintaining that gnarled Andy Serkis growl, but it was so one-to-one that there wasn't room for Bozzuto to put his own stamp on it. I was thinking of the movies, not the play.
The play looked great, although mileage varied when it came to staging some of the big set pieces. Easily the highlight was Frodo and Sam's encounter with the giant spider Shelob, who was brought to life with some brilliant puppetry. On the other hand, Gandalf's standoff with the Balrog was weirdly abstract, with little sense of what was actually going on. Merry and Pippin's run-in with Treebeard boils down to them looking up in awe up something we can't see while the pre-recorded voice of John Lithgow booms throughout the theater.
There was a fair amount of dancing throughout the show. A lot of it was great and context-appropriate, but some was over-choreographed. Not everybody needs to be swirling their hands around at all times. And there's just something weird about Saruman doing herky-jerky industrial dance moves with a trio of Uruk-hai.
The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale's run at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater has come to an end, but the show is going around the world; you can find out where here. I had a good time, but the show definiteily has limits. But if you're a Lord of the Rings fan looking to experience the story in a new way, this is a worthwhile ticket.
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