November 13, 2024

The Lord Of The Rings: A Musical Tale – Civic Theatre: November 12, 2024

It’s now a musical! The Lord Of The Rings: A Musical Tale opened at Auckland’s Civic Theatre is grand style…a red carpet, fancy gowns and a Hobbit or two ready to greet us.

This being New Zealand, or “Middle Earth”, the cast and crew were thrilled to be performing here, bringing this current iteration of the music from Chicago, where it had opened at the Shakespeare Theatre this past July.

The musical itself has something of a chequered past.

It was conceived by Kevin Wallace back in 2003 and premiered three years later in Toronto…then London two years later. This smaller, more “intimate” version got mixed reviews.

The Musical was re-jigged by Paul Hart in 2022 and premiered at The Watermill Theatre in August of 2023. This version went over much better.

The songs, staging, choreography, acting and singing have all been upgraded and it is this version that Auckland audiences were treated to last night.

Now, the question of whether or not we “need” a musical version of The Lord Of The Rings is moot. It’s here, so let’s deal with it.

I will note that I am neither a Lord Of The Rings follower or a fan of musical theatre…but I did have a good time being entertained by some very, very talented people.

Director Paul Hart has made the production more audience inclusive while retaining the intimacy of the early version. And so, the audience was almost unaware that the play had begun when a couple of folks started playing ring toss in from of the stage at 8:30. Eventually it became clear; as costumed actors appeared that the show was on.

And what a show!

From a technical standpoint, everything was stunning.

The stage manages to be sparse but complex at once, with plenty of places for Gollum (or Sméagol) to scamper around.

There is no orchestra in a pit, but rather, the 24 actors perform all the music themselves using over 40 instruments including a harp. The sound is suitably Gaelic and the performances are uniformly excellent.

The standout song is Now And For Always sung by Michael Kurowski (Samwise Gamgee) and Spencer Davis Milford (Fodo Baggins). A few of the tune are forgettable but none seem out of place. In fact, it felt like there could be more music and less dialogue as there were various points in the 3-hour show where it felt like we were just hearing exposition rather than genuine storytelling.

And yes, the show could be shorter (that seems to be the case with all things LOTR) but I do encourage folks to be patient as the final hour (after a much-appreciated intermission) is the “best part”, featuring Tony Bozzuto’s very physical Gollum performance and the appearance of the extremely frightening Shelob (giant spider) puppet.

It’s not a perfect production but it is impressive and any time the stage on the Civic features a giant turntable spinning around while Hobbits and Goblins fight it out, I’m in.

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Nathan Simo: