Hobbitses

Covent Garden, mid-afternoon. The streets are bustling with people, merchants and street performers. How do I describe Covent Garden? If Saks 5th Avenue met Chinatown, their offspring would be Covent Garden.
The uneven brick streets took me back to a time when I could picture carriages pulled through the streets by gray horses. Merchants with carts were surrounded by customers, while all along the sidewalks are stores like Marks & Spencers, H&M, and Gucci: Trademarks of high society mingling happily with street vendors and wanderers.
What brought me to Covent Garden, however, was a 2pm showing of Lord of the Rings: The Musical. Being the geek that I am, the moment I saw posters for the show on the walls of the London Underground I had to see it before it finished its run. I hopped online immediately and found out everything I could and, despite mixed reviews, had every desire to see this show.
Allie and I took our seats in the Grand Circle of the Royal Theatre on Drury Lane (no I didn't meet the muffin man) to face a stage that appeared to be overgrown with tree roots and branches, from the point where the wall meets the stage, wrapping all some of the side boxes and balcony, it's span stretching across the ceiling.
From this moment on we were bombarded by a fantastically immersing experience that pulled in all of the senses and made us feel alongside the characters. It was the best stage and technical design I have ever seen for a show and the music was a beautiful blend of Celtic tradition and Enya. I lost count of all the times I got chills while watching. There were moments when the cast used the tiers of the circles as part of the stage, coming among the audience to appear as though on a perch in relation to those on stage, which only helped to immerse the watcher in the whole experience. I stared transfixed as Gandolf turned to face the Balrog of Moria amidst glowing fire and smoke and wind that filled the entire theatre, ending the first half of the show.
The second half began with Gollum literally climbing down the complex root-work from the ceiling to the stage and the story picked up without losing a beat. Before long I was in the glory and radiance of the Golden Wood, serenaded by a Galadriel who descended from the trees by ribbon and vine. Battles with the Orcs were filled with amazing feats of acrobatics on a revolving, lifting and lowering stage. Most Orcs hobbled around, their hands attached to front stilt-like appendages. Others wore on their feet springy stilts that allowed them to flip and tumbled high in the air.
Between the second and third acts Allie and I jumped as unsuspecting audience members screamed, finding themselves face-to-face with Orcs so well costumed they were like something out of nightmares, only to later find ourselves victim to their taunting as the horns struck up again and they ran for the nearest exit. I found myself cringing as a giant convincingly spider-like Shelob attacked our heroes and holding my breath as Frodo stood on the crack of Mt. Doom.
Honestly, I felt like the show was very well put-together. I enjoyed the music and every aspect of the storytelling. I'll admit, that many important characters and plot lines were cut from the show altogether (they'd have to be to fit three novels into three hours). Anyone who was a die-hard, stalwart aficionado would probably be up in arms crying treason to Tolkien, but as far as the story goes, if I were someone who had never heard of Lord of the Rings or anything about it, with this show I would get the basic idea of the main story, if not all the little extras that expanded the books. I think to pick it apart for leaving out full story arcs inside the larger story arc is getting very minute. The main story, after all, is about Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring.
Anyways, Allie and I capped the night with a visit with the boys to an Indian food restaurant up the road from our flats and a nice hour of ping-pong and chatting.
It was a Saturday I'll remember forever.

JD