SAMWISE
I'm gay. Isn't this better than a funny Sean Astin
impression?
LEGOLAS
I'm dancing weird. Isn't this better than a funny
Orlando Bloom impression?
GANDALF
We're in New York City. That means people want to
hear improvised lines about Wicked, right?
AUDIENCE
You realize we're not tourists, and that we actually
came toting copies of Fellowship of the Ring, right?
GANDALF
Bullshit.
ACTUAL GUY THAT
I MET IN THE LOBBY
No really, I was skimming through a very well-worn
copy of Tolkien while I was waiting for them to let
the house in.
- You're someone
who has never seen the movies, in which case you're going to be so very, very
confused for 95 minutes.
- You're someone who treats Lord of the Rings as
a sacred work, in which case you're my wife. And nothing was going to
satisfy the horror you experienced when you found J. R. R. Tolkien's religious
masterpiece desecrated.
- You've seen the movies, enjoy silly comedy, and are ready for a good time. Which is exactly what the show delivers.
Fellowship! has been around for awhile--I believe was given a copy of
the cast
recording a good 5 or 6 years ago but never bothered to listen to
it--and it was created by a California-based group of performers who
reunite together on the east coast to recreate their Saturn-winning
comedy
(and if you don't know that the Saturns are the
Science-Fiction-occasionally-Fantasy awards, I'm guessing you're a
Type One). 9 actors portray all of the characters in the
first Lord of the Rings film (the books are mostly ignored) and do it
with the wit and style of a high-quality improv troupe.
That is, the
material is funny but occasionally uneven, the songs are sometimes hilarious and sometimes uneven, but it all comes at you fast
and furious enough that by the time you've begun groaning at that last
"New Orc City" pun, you're
already laughing at, say, a rock and roll number sung entirely in
what I can only assume is perfect Elvish tongue. The best segments are
little genius tidbits that poke fun at the geekiest moments of the
movie--and some of them are purely inspired. The worst is the
overuse of adlibs that make the comedy nowhere near as tight and sharp
as it could be, even if the cast is skilled at improvisation.
But no
matter--I've seen too many one-dimensional movie parodies in theater festivals, and this
may be the only one that "gets" that the emphasis on these types of things needs to be on the comedy. If you're interested and enjoyed the Peter Jackson movies, do catch
Fellowship before it heads back to the west coast.
Unless you think lampooning Lord of the Rings is tantamount to sin, in which case, I'm sorry honey, but that's no reason I should have to sleep on the couch tonight.
RSS Feed
E-mail me about new scripts!
