“THE LORD OF THE RINGS”, the first major stage adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy, will receive its British and European Premiere when it opens in London this Summer. “THE LORD OF THE RINGS” will open in the West End at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Tuesday 19 June, following previews from 9 May. This follows the 70th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien starting to write the trilogy and the 50th anniversary of the publication of the complete trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King”.
Malcolm Storry, best known for his many seasons at the RSC and who recently starred in “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” at the National Theatre, will play ‘Gandalf’. James Loye will recreate the role of ‘Frodo Baggins’, which he played in Toronto last year. Laura Michelle Kelly, who won an Olivier Award for originating the title role in “Mary Poppins” in London, will play ‘Galadriel’. Michael Therriault will play ‘Gollum’, the role he originated in Toronto, winning the Dora Award for ‘Best Actor’. Peter Howe will recreate his role as ‘Sam’, for which he received a Dora Award nomination. Jerome Pradon, who has starred in many West End musicals including “Les Misérables” and “Martin Guerre”, will play ‘Aragorn’. Brian Protheroe, who will play ‘Saruman’ has successfully managed to combine both acting and music careers, having released a number of pop records in the 1970’s and having starred in many West End productions including “Leave Him to Heaven” and “Pump Boys and Dinettes”. Richard Henders, who has recently starred in “Caroline or Change” at the National Theatre and received an Olivier Award nomination for the Donmar’s production of “Pacific Overtures”, will play ‘Merry’. Owen Sharpe will recreate the role of ‘Pippin’, which he played in Toronto last year. Michael Rouse, recently seen starring in “The Boyfriend” at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, will play ’Legolas’. Sévan Stephan, who created the role of ‘Big Jule’ in the production of “Guys and Dolls” at the Piccadilly Theatre, will play ‘Gimli’. Steven Miller, recently seen in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Sheffield Crucible, will play ‘Boromir’. Rosalie Craig, seen in the recent BBC productions of “My Family and other Animals” and “Casanova”, will play ‘Arwen’.
Andrew Jarvis will play ‘Elrond’, Terence Frisch ‘Bilbo’, Tim Morgan ‘Théoden’ and Kirsty Malpass ‘Rosie’. The cast of fifty also includes Alexandra Bonnet, Greg Bradley, James Byng, Darren Carnall, Lee Clayden, Jennie Dale, Claire Doyle, Stephen Emery, Ben Evans, Josh Feldshuh, Alma Ferovic, Wayne Fitzsimmons, Chris Gage, David Grant, Shaun Henson, Michael Hobbs, Christopher D. Hunt, Luke Johnson, Corrie Mac, Stuart Neal, Scott Owen, Tim Parker, Richard Roe, Andrew Rothwell, Adam Salter, Robbie Scotcher, Nick Searle, Stevie Tate-Bauer, Jon Tsouras, Gavin Wilkinson, Glenn Wilkinson, Sam Wilmot and Kirk Zammit.
The production has book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna & Matthew Warchus and music by A.R. Rahman & Värttinä with Christopher Nightingale. The show will be directed by Matthew Warchus, with choreography by Peter Darling and set and costume design by Rob Howell.
The show will have lighting by Paul Pyant, sound design by Simon Baker for Autograph, moving image direction by The Gray Circle, literary consultancy by Laurie Battle, special effects design by Gregory Meeh, illusions and magic effects by Paul Kieve, circus skills by Alex Frith and musical direction by Richard Brown.
Director Matthew Warchus says of the production, “We have not attempted to pull the novel towards the standard conventions of Musical Theatre, but rather to expand those conventions so that they will accommodate Tolkien’s material. As a result, we will be presenting a hybrid of Text, Physical Theatre, Music and Spectacle never previously seen on this scale. To read the novel is to experience the events of Middle-earth in the mind’s eye; only in the theatre are we actually plunged into the events as they happen. The environment surrounds us. We participate. We are in Middle-earth.”
The Kevin Wallace Limited production of “THE LORD OF THE RINGS” will be presented in London by Kevin Wallace and Saul Zaentz.
Performance times at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for “THE LORD OF THE RINGS”, which runs at 3 hours including interval, will be Mondays at 7.00pm and Tuesdays-Saturdays at 7.30pm, with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.00pm. Tickets, priced from £15.00 – £60.00, are available from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane Box Office on 0870 890 6002.
Full rehearsals begin on Monday 5 February.
www.lotr.com
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ALATRISTE
HISPANIC INTROSPECTION DISGUISED AS SUPERPRODUCTION
22 million Euros, more than 4 months of filming, 10,000 extras and a star like Viggo Mortensen. Arturo Perez-Reverte’s anti-hero adaptation has given us the biggest Spanish-cinema project. Alatriste now lands in Mexico after alluring more than 3 million viewers in Spain.
“He wasn’t the most honest man, nor the most compassionate, but he was a brave man”, with these words writer Arturo Perez-Reverte opens more than a decade ago the Captain Alatriste saga, an authentic literary phenomenon in the Spanish speaking world with his just released sixth book, Corsarios de Levante (Levante’s Corsairs). Those same words are the ones that put an end to Alatriste, the movie directed by Agustin Diaz Yanez (Bendito Infierno, 2001), conceived with the idea of achieving an impact similar to the novels that inspires it, because “we are almost 400 millions of Hispanic-speakers in the world,, and we’re still being included into the Anglo-Saxon culture, so the best answer to that is to make movies that stand up to the technical level they have, but at the same time be furiously Hispanic in their content.”
In Spain, Alatriste opened on September 1st 2006, beating James Bond, Eragon, Superman and the X-Men, positioning itself as the fourth most viewed movie of 2006, just behind Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The DaVinci Code and The Ice Age 2.
Just Like a Hero
When the time came to put together a super production like this one, and be able to compete with the big Made in Hollywood productions, the people responsible for the project did not think about expenses, starting with a big A-level star, Viggo Mortensen, still fresh from the memory of The Lord of the Rings’ Aragorn.
“We had two names, Viggo Mortensen and Benicio Del Toro –Agustin Diaz Yanes explains-, but the later barely spoke Spanish, and Viggo showed great enthusiasm for the project, and was very committed since the start. He rejected other offers just to be able to have time to prepare his character; he’s a methodic performer, always ready to give himself entirely. He’s a luxury as an actor and person. The only condition he made was that we couldn’t even consider the option of making this an English-speaking movie just to give it a more international acceptance, but I assured him that was out of the question.”
During the press conference before the shooting of the film, Mortensen explained some of the reasons he found the script -which concentrates the five books published at the time- appealing. “It’s a very deep story, in it you can find the crumbling of an empire that lost strength and presence do to it’s war excesses, something that even though takes place in the 17th century Spain, it’s also applicable now days”, he said in open reference to the American empire.
Apart from Viggo, they also thought of Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel) for the part of Inigo de Balboa- Alatriste’s friend and narrator in the books-, about him the director Diaz Yanez said: “I’m passionate about him as an actor, but he had a very tight agenda and the producers had already changed the due dates lots of times in order to have Viggo, and it was impossible to match them with Gael’s dates.”
A Blockbuster that it is not.
One of the biggest complaints the movie has received is the fact that it concentrates the five novels, instead of making a saga, but this is something that bothers the director: “If we spent 2 million Euros, and it’s the biggest film budget ever spent in a Spanish film, Is there really someone that thinks we are in conditions to start a series of movies which costs would be over 100 million Euros? That’s idle talk…”.
And the fact is that, contrary to what we may think, Alatriste’s not an action-adventure movie, at least not in the strict sense of the term: “Some say there’s very little action inn it for an adventure movie- Agustin Diaz Yanes says-, but that it’s because they don’t get our approach, we never attempted to make a Spanish version of Pirates of the Caribbean, the books’ background and story have too much depth from the historical and political point of view to make it a cape and spade film”. The same way it’s leading character is more an antihero than a hero, the movie gives preeminence to the story of an empire’s fall throughout 30 years of history, than to it’s splendor.
We are in presence of an anti-epic movie, with spectacular sequences, and yes, a dose of royal intrigue, sword fights, and massive use of extras, but where introspection is more important than action itself. A suicidal approach that has disappointed more than one spectator, but one that at the same time has conquered many applauses, because what really transcends is the effort of showing the Spanish society that had in people like Cervantes, Quevedo or Velazquez, it’s mayor founders, artists that in their works reflected the beginning of decay, the end of a dream, the resigned awakening to the misery of an empire.
Because of all this, Alatriste is much more than a simple movie is a passionate journey to the origins of a sentiment in which identity is at last achieved.
Article by Jaime Iglesias, Madrid
Premier Magazine, Mexico
Issue 151, April 2007
Translated by Nimthiriel for TheOneRing.net
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The Elusive Mr. Mortensen
Translated by Nimthiriel for TheOnering.net
“Now we have the American Empire falling, and making war, and us be ashamed of it”
The air of mystery that surrounds Diego Alatriste seems to move also around the person who brings him life and voice in the movie, Viggo Mortensen. For reasons only known to him, the interview kept being changed, confusing reporters and publicists, and started to become an obsession for me. Finally the day came, and Viggo’s answers, given in a very formal Spanish, gave me even more questions. The images of Alatriste and Mortensen seem to want to stay: mysterious, in shadow and with frank lucidity. Maybe it’s better this way.
What similarities do you find between Imperial Spain’s Golden Age and today?
The Spanish Empire was the biggest world power of the time, but it was falling. Soldiers barely could live under a system that offered very little possibilities of improving one’s life, and none to individual expression or free speech. Now we have the American empire, also falling, making war, and making us be ashamed of it.
How do you think the movie will do in the US, taking into account it comes from a less developed film industry than Hollywood?
I’m worried about the people promoting the film outside Spain, because they haven’t done a good job so far. If we are allowed to visit the countries where the movie is being screened, and to the places where I and others from the production are known, I think we could get an unprecedented success.
Do you consider that a movie has to be faithful to the novel which is based on, or it can be a reinterpretation?
It has to be faithful to the original, and as meticulous as possible of the language used and to the storyline.
Did you consider the novel’s fans when creating your character?
Not much. I respect the fact that everyone has their own ideas and images about the book, but I think an actor has to be faithful to his own investigation and personal knowledge in order to create and play a character.
In four or five words, how would you describe your experience in Alatriste?
Could not have been better.
Interview by Paulette Jonguitud Acosta
Primetime Magazine April 2007 issue nº 151.
Mexico
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