Reviews of the Rings
Mar. 24th, 2006 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyI'm not gonna say I'm surprised, really. I knew that even if the geeks found it long, dull, and hard to follow, it wasn't gonna resound.
Yep, folks, previews are over, and now it's time for reviews. The New York Times review is not kind; "Everyone and everything winds up lost in this $25 million adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's cult-inspiring trilogy of fantasy novels. That includes plot, character and the patience of most ordinary theatergoers."
He also feels that "perhaps the sanest approach to this production, adapted from Tolkien's books by an international team of artists led by the British director Matthew Warchus, is to look upon it as an arcane religious pageant that can be fully appreciated only by the initiated."
As for the performances? "The show's best-known actor is Brent Carver (a Tony winner for "Kiss of the Spiderwoman"), whose hole-pitted line readings as the magisterial wizard Gandalf inappropriately suggest that the old sage is suffering from a Hamlet-like crisis of resolution. Evan Buliung is better cast as the action-figure hunk Strider (a k a Aragorn), and the audience clearly warms to the scenery chewing of Michael Therriault as the whiny, sneaky Gollum, who here looks like an unraveling mummy and sounds like Renfield, Dracula's old sidekick."
Ouzounian's review in The Star (where he rates it at two out of four stars) furthers the common thread of the fact it's dull. I don't know if I'd go that far (I guess not seeing 300 stage productions a year lets you retain a little more sensawunda than a theatre critic), but it was sure dissapointing.
He gives props to Theriault, noting "at the critics' preview I attended, the audience only broke into spontaneous applause twice and that was at the conclusion of two of Gollum's scenes: intense, intimate moments that were free from any spectacle."
Yep, folks, previews are over, and now it's time for reviews. The New York Times review is not kind; "Everyone and everything winds up lost in this $25 million adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's cult-inspiring trilogy of fantasy novels. That includes plot, character and the patience of most ordinary theatergoers."
He also feels that "perhaps the sanest approach to this production, adapted from Tolkien's books by an international team of artists led by the British director Matthew Warchus, is to look upon it as an arcane religious pageant that can be fully appreciated only by the initiated."
As for the performances? "The show's best-known actor is Brent Carver (a Tony winner for "Kiss of the Spiderwoman"), whose hole-pitted line readings as the magisterial wizard Gandalf inappropriately suggest that the old sage is suffering from a Hamlet-like crisis of resolution. Evan Buliung is better cast as the action-figure hunk Strider (a k a Aragorn), and the audience clearly warms to the scenery chewing of Michael Therriault as the whiny, sneaky Gollum, who here looks like an unraveling mummy and sounds like Renfield, Dracula's old sidekick."
Ouzounian's review in The Star (where he rates it at two out of four stars) furthers the common thread of the fact it's dull. I don't know if I'd go that far (I guess not seeing 300 stage productions a year lets you retain a little more sensawunda than a theatre critic), but it was sure dissapointing.
He gives props to Theriault, noting "at the critics' preview I attended, the audience only broke into spontaneous applause twice and that was at the conclusion of two of Gollum's scenes: intense, intimate moments that were free from any spectacle."
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Date: 2006-03-24 04:13 pm (UTC)Mainly, all I wanted was more singing, less running.
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Date: 2006-03-24 08:24 pm (UTC)Therriault is da bomb, as the kids like to say. His Bloom was awesome.