By Galen Simmons
As an avid Tolkien fan, when I first heard the Stratford Festival would be mounting a production of The Hobbit on the Avon Theatre stage, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture how the production team would bring the vast expanses of Middle Earth and its dwarves, elves, goblins and hobbits to life in such a confined space.
Then, when the festival announced it would be telling this story, which prominently features 13 dwarves, a wizard and a hobbit, with a cast of only nine actors, my bewilderment only intensified. Either the production would need to rely on audiences’ imaginations to fill in the blanks, or there was to be some very clever stagecraft (magic?) at work.
To my absolute delight, the latter is true and, in my professional opinion, director Pablo Felices-Luna, his cast and crew successfully transported me and my fellow audience members to the Shire, the depths of Khazad-dûm, the Woodland Realm of the elves, Lake-town and the Lonely Mountain.
And not only did they do that, but the production manages to populate a whole world and tell the story with some well-placed and very quick costume changes without taking anything away from the action onstage. In fact, it’s the more chaotic scenes, like when Bilbo (Richard Lee) and the dwarves are trying to escape from the stone trolls or when Gandalf (Tim Campbell), Thorin (Aaron Krohn) and his company are fighting the goblins when those quick changes from one character to another are nearly unnoticeable and actually make it seem as though there are more characters onstage than there are actors.
The set in this production looks like it came straight from one of Peter Jackson’s films. Designed to look almost like two stone rings, one in front of the other, with lighting around the inside of each ring, the set pieces are constantly shifting, splitting in half and being moved around to look at one moment like the dense Mirkwood Forest, and at another, the vast halls of Erebor in the Lonely Mountain.
Combined with what looks like long stone platforms – often slanted at a slight angle – which, like the rings, are also on tracks so they can be moved in and out of the audience’s frame of view, the illusion that the characters are walking great distances, up mountains and down into mines, is simply perfect.
And the lighting on the inside of the giant stone rings changes with the mood of each scene. When Bilbo puts on the one ring, for example, the lighting immediately changes to a fiery orange, reminiscent of the colour of the Eye of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings films. That lighting change also helps the audience understand that the little Hobbit has partially shifted into the Unseen World, invisible to his friends and enemies alike – a handy trick when facing down goblins or a dragon.
The performances in this play are excellent. Lee is wonderful as the reluctant yet brave and loyal Bilbo, Krohn delivers a strong performance as Thorin, the rightful dwarven king bent on reclaiming his former home at all costs, and each of the actors who play multiple parts are fantastic, somehow giving each of their characters the right amount of care and attention – something that isn’t easy when every character you play is a dwarf.
I was particularly impressed with the versatility of Michael Man, who played Gollum, Elrond and Bard among other characters; Campbell, who played both Gandalf and the terrifyingly awesome Smaug; and Sara-Jeanne Hosie, who embodied Belladonna Took, Bilbo’s adventurous ancestor and the narrator of the play, as well as Lord Eagle and the Thrush – the semi-magical songbird who shows Bilbo and the dwarves the secret entrance to Erebor.
Could I write more about how much I loved this production – from the design of the life-size troll and dragon puppets and the goblin and elven costumes to the beautiful Middle Earth soundscape and the choreography involved in each of the battles? I absolutely could, but I believe I’ve run out of both room on this page and time.
Instead, I’ll just tell you to go see this play. If you’re like me and you’ve been a fan of Tolkien’s work for a long time, you’ll love it. And if you’re only just discovering Middle Earth and all it’s fantastical characters and creatures now, you’ll also love it.
The Hobbit plays at the Avon Theatre until Oct. 23.
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