Would Tolkien work well on stage?

[kzer_za]

Having seen a lot of Shakespeare plays in the last few months (yes, I know the professor wasn't a fan), I've been thinking about the possibility of Tolkien and live theater lately, just for fun. Mostly with parts of his work that haven't been filmed. His language is certainly beautiful at times, and his characters leave enough room for interpretation. While there are parts that would be a disaster on stage, there are others that could be quite interesting.

I think the Scouring of the Shire + Grey Havens could make a good play - you have some weighty themes, an immediate hook to LotR, no particularly difficult visuals, and interesting directions in which the actors could take the characters. And LotR is popular enough that you wouldn't need to spend much time explaining the story leading to that point, because almost everyone is familiar with at least a rough outline of the plot.

Some of the meatier parts of the Elder Days could also be intriguing, though then you run into the problems of high-fantasy visuals. You need Morgoth for Beren and Lúthien or Glaurung for Túrin - not insurmountable obstacles, but tricky ones requiring a creative theater company. Could Aldarion and Erendis (oddball that it is Tolkien's canon) work?

[axordil]

They've been doing dragons on stage since Wagner's time.

[kzer_za]

True, it's definitely been done...the theater I've seen most and tend to prefer consists of dialog-driven plays that are somewhat economical with setpieces, so I was thinking mainly in terms of those. I guess I forgot about more lavish visuals that often accompany musicals and opera (and sometimes non-musical plays too, but not as often).

[axordil]

I think really good puppeteers could pull off Glaurang or any other number of nonhuman entities, after seeing The Lion King and hearing about War Horse.

OTOH "Aldarion and Elendris" would work well straight up.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Personally, I think Tolkien is not well-suited for the stage (and I share Tolkien's opinion of Wagner, so there's that).

IMO, the stage is far too urban, melodramatic, manufactured and navel-gazing a setting to capture the beauty and wonder of LOTR's depths. Film, TV and the fine arts are far more accomodating.

There's little entertainment I love more than a great Uncle Vanya (I saw a version with Blanchett and Weaving that blew my mind), or a solid King Lear, but I don't think Frodo and Sam belong in front of the curtain.

The story of Túrin Turambar, however, might make for a compelling tragic play...

[Alatar]

I have seen LotR as both a play and a musical. The play was done using puppets, in a highly stylised fashion, by a canadian company called Theatre sans Fils. They pretty much left out Helms Deep and Saruman if I recall, and Boromir and Denethor were played as African styled princes. It was enjoyable, but not wonderful.

The musical, on the other hand, I loved. Their choices were not always the choices I would have made, but its always wonderful to see new interpretations. I have a thread on it here somewhere with clips.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Tolkien did not think that fantasy in general was suited to Drama:

In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature. In painting, for instance, the visible presentation of the fantastic image is technically too easy; the hand tends to outrun the mind, even to overthrow it. Silliness or morbidity are frequent results. It is a misfortune that Drama, an art fundamentally distinct from Literature, should so commonly be considered together with it, or as a branch of it. Among these misfortunes we may reckon the depreciation of Fantasy. For in part at least this depreciation is due to the natural desire of critics to cry up the forms of literature or “imagination” that they themselves, innately or by training, prefer. And criticism in a country that has produced so great a Drama, and possesses the works of William Shakespeare, tends to be far too dramatic. But Drama is naturally hostile to Fantasy. Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly and audibly acted. Fantastic forms are not to be counterfeited. Men dressed up as talking animals may achieve buffoonery or mimicry, but they do not achieve Fantasy. This is, I think, well illustrated by the failure of the bastard form, pantomime. The nearer it is to “dramatized fairy-story” the worse it is. It is only tolerable when the plot and its fantasy are reduced to a mere vestigiary framework for farce, and no “belief” of any kind in any part of the performance is required or expected of anybody. This is, of course, partly due to the fact that the producers of drama have to, or try to, work with mechanism to represent either Fantasy or Magic. I once saw a so-called “children's pantomime,” the straight story of Puss-in-Boots, with even the metamorphosis of the ogre into a mouse. Had this been mechanically successful it would either have terrified the spectators or else have been just a turn of high-class conjuring. As it was, though done with some ingenuity of lighting, disbelief had not so much to be suspended as
hanged, drawn, and quartered.

[yovargas]

Tolkien was wrong.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I think drama, in its traditional form, is I'll-suited to fully capture the faery world of Tolkien.

But cinema today, given both technological advancements and a movement away from the "filmed play" aesthetic of films before the 70s, make it possible to get closer to the Tolkien spirit. Remember that Tolkien was looking at a filmscape that was very different than today.

So he may have been right during his day, but he gets less right as time passes, IMO.

[axordil]

I also think much of Tolkien's work isn't really overtly "fantastic" in nature. There's an undercurrent of wonder, but the proportion of necessary flashy bits are, for the genre, rather low.

Thought exercise: stage the Pellanor Fields and the Madness of Denethor as if you worked in 1600 at the Globe, and Henry V was the best model you had.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think he is still right to a very great extent, even with the technological advances. I think that is the root of a lot of the debates we and others have about the films. No matter how good the technology is, the dramatic medium (whether film or stage) substitutes someone else's vision for the imagination of the reader. A different director might be better for some people, but I doubt very much that she would be better for all.

[Passdagas the Brown]

I think he is still right to a very great extent, even with the technological advances. I think that is the root of a lot of the debates we and others have about the films. No matter how good the technology is, the dramatic medium (whether film or stage) substitutes someone else's vision for the imagination of the reader. A different director might be better for some people, but I doubt very much that she would be better for all.

Perhaps. But that's true for every book-to-film adaptation!

What is it about Tolkien's work in particular that you believe makes it generally unsuitable for film?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

His ability to paint such a specific picture in the reader's mind. It exceeds by far any other author that I have experienced.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Can't disagree with that. Personally, I believe there are some filmmakers who could come close to replicating my vision on the big screen. But noone could ever fully realize what is, indeed, a very personal interpretation. I couldn't even do that if I made the film myself! Inevitably, resource constraints, the fallibility of crewmembers and actors, etc, would only lead me to a poor facsimile of what's in my head.

But I do believe that the medium of film is, in comparison to other media like the stage and the canvas, uniquely capable of capturing a compelling facsimile of Tolkien.

But it would take someone with extraordinary talent, and an unusually profound understanding of Tolkien's depths, to even get close to the wonder one gets from reading these stories.

In the end, images and sounds are very different than words. And one needs to be especially astute to produce a compelling translation from the language of the pen to the language of the camera.

But I don't believe that should stop us from trying.

[Alatar]

Live Theater can sometimes achieve more than film. Because you can't "show" everything, you "suggest" images and sets and allow the audience to fill in the gaps. For example, how do you show someone falling into a chasm filled with lava?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxcjfPQ9aDs

Now, I'm not suggesting that this is superior to the minds eye, or even the movie version, but performed live on stage it is extraordinarily powerful.

[yovargas]

It's pretty simple, IMO - different mediums have different strengths. Of course there are things the book does that movies or the stage can't ever do, but there are also things the movies bring that no book ever could. Fortunately, we don't have to chose one or the other - we can have them all!

[Passdagas the Brown]

Live Theater can sometimes achieve more than film. Because you can't "show" everything, you "suggest" images and sets and allow the audience to fill in the gaps. For example, how do you show someone falling into a chasm filled with lava?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxcjfPQ9aDs

Now, I'm not suggesting that this is superior to the minds eye, or even the movie version, but performed live on stage it is extraordinarily powerful.

That's actually not that bad at all, though the music is a little busy.

[Smaug's voice]

The story of beren and Lúthien or the Children of Húrin or the fall of Doriath or the tale of Aldarion. All of these would make excellent stage-plays, and if done perfectly can surpass Shakespearean plays. (well, that's my own opinion. )