LOOSE ENDS,
AS WE LEAVE SANDY-EGGO

a) I guess I got my answer as to whether Yevgeni Plushenko's "I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt" aura was real or just part of the performance: he's been spewing sour grapes about his second-place finish, as if the execution of a quadruple jump is the sine qua non of a first-place finish. Bollocks, borscht-boy.

You didn't have the "it" that night (and certainly not for the short program either-- blech). Evan Lysacek had the "it": that indefinable quality that courses through your veins and tells you it is your night.

Brian Boitano had it the night he be beat Brian Orser in '88 (sigh)-- Canadians wanted it not to be so, but when you watched Boitano skate you knew what a winner looked like.

Go suck a lemon, Goldilocks -- don't want to hear from you.


b) I was entirely right in my prediction that I'd walk into the local Borders and find my copy of the original Broadway cast recording of Man of La Mancha.

[Barnes & Noble had a "new Broadway cast" version featuring a bunch of people I never heard of. Uh, I think not.]

At last.


c) While surfing around the bio's of long-ago Bard buddies, I neglected to note that Powers Boothe is also one of those rare Hollywood birds with a 40th wedding anniversary and a coupla kids to his credit.

Kudos, Dudos.

I'm just feelin' the warmth.




d) Farewell to So-Cal, where it's been sunny and clear and frighteningly comfortable. Astonishing views all round us, and this just down the road:


I could get to enjoy this -- even for extended periods. But not all year, every year. No changing seasons is bad for the soul.

Sign at the lovely ravine inside the neighbourhood compound, where my grandson rode his trike today: "BEWARE -- FIRE HAZARD, POISON OAK, RATTLE SNAKES."

...and that's just the state government...

Rim shot.

THIS 'N THAT,
'N RANDOM STUFF FROM ALL OVER

It's 1:20 p.m. and I'm still in my jammies and have all kinds of things to do (must buy new dishwasher), but I've been going off on some pretty entertaining tangents in the last couple of days to distract myself, and might as well report on them. But first:


PRIORITY ONE: BULLETIN FROM THE 'STANS

Nephew LT. E-BOY, USN, "friended" me this morning, so he can report in on the Facebook from Afghanistan, from whence he checked in today to say that he had arrived at Baghram Air Base, en route to his destination in [REDACTED] province to spend the better part of a year in re-construction work. ["re-"? Was there that much in Afghanistan that was ever "constructed"?]

Once upon a time it was "Hell no, we won't go!" But it's a new world out there in the younger generation. Lt. E-Boy spent 4 years at what may be the most tough and competitive college in the country, the U.S. Naval Academy, and then spent three months at a time cruising beneath the waves of the vast Pacific in a nuclear submarine. But he traded in the waves for the peaks and windswept valleys of Afghanistan, as a volunteer willing to go where sailors never go, and place himself in the kind of danger that's a little more immediate than a missile's distance from ship to target.

These kids today!

That's what they do. Where did we find them?


WEEKEND IN FLORIDA

Unlike the typical snowbirds from the north, we headed to the Gulf Coast to be part of the winging of #3 son, who is now a fully qualified Naval Aviator/Navigator (Naval Flight Officer). Early on the day, under the watchful eye of St. Brendan the Navigator, we had a small contingent of the Wingees in the chapel for a blessing of their wings -- a simple but very moving rite, crowned by singing four verses of the Navy Hymn. Awesome.

In a very fine ceremony at the National Naval Air Museum (cool) about a dozen students -- Navy and Air Force, with German, Italian, and Saudi classmates -- had family or superiors place their hard-earned wings on their uniforms.

It was my turn to wing a kid (the spousal unit had winged the elder one), and I did my job: carefully place wings one quarter inch above "thanks-for-showin'-up" ribbon; press two pointy prongs through uniform coat; punch Wingee in the chest until pointy prongs leave small red marks on skin (if possible -- as it turned out there was too much jacket for skin contact).


Since Flyboy was only the second in line (preceded by a Saudi, who had no one to belt him), the crowd seemed unprepared to see a gray-haired woman pound her son in the chest, so it elicited a small chorus of "oohs". Over in the reception line, Flyboy's C.O., a square-jawed Marine with a chest full of fruit salad, told me I done good.

By nightfall it was raining like fury, and I was eating shrimp and crab and fried green tomatoes. Finest kind.


ON THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS
I'M JAMMIN' WITH THE PROS

We got invited to a Third Day of Christmas Party (on December 28, for those of you in Rio Linda, although technically that's probably the Fourth Day). The invitation said to "Bring your instruments." I had a suspicion what that might mean, but I had the brass to do as directed, thinking I might join in with some pretty amazing people.

And they were there. Our hosts have a huge farm house in the Peterborough area, with what can only be called a "great room", in the style of a castle, except that it's all timber. And our hosts are also old school friends of Canada's finest Irish family band, called by just their surname "Leahy"-- eleven kids, who form up in various combinations to tour and record, playing fiddles and step dancing (simultaneously, which is no mean feat), and generally tearing up the place. The best fiddler in the Leahy family is married to the other best fiddler in Canada, Natalie McMaster, and she came along to the party too.

So there I was, having the nerve to bump away on my bodhran with the best of the best. I kept up fine with the jigs, but the reels were just too fast for me, so I tom-tommed as best I could. They are such very nice folks, all the Leahys, and were as welcoming and friendly to me as could be. Great way to keep the season up past the 25th, which is as it should be.

Christmas was spent with as much of the fam as we could muster: two out of My Three Sons at home, one with new wife and even newer unborn oven-bun in tow. I guess at some point I'll get used to people passing around their ultra-sound pictures -- it's just a little, er, intimate when you think about how you're checking out somebody's uterine studio, eh? But we do love the anticipation as grand-baby #2 thrives and prepares to make an entrance in May.

Hope he/she doesn't work too hard to upstage the other scheduled production, my Play of the Resurrection for the upcoming Chester Cycle. Another year, another medieval "Wagons, HO-O-O!"


BACK TO THE RANDOM

Spent last night and this morning revising my little sheaf of half-a-dozen poems, wondering if anyone else will ever read them. Not a total waste of time. Memo to self: Must take initiative to see where people go to publish poetry, and seek recognition and admiration from someone other than self.

Spent yesterday afternoon reading about the Bauhaus, the better to dump on the whole vision when doing architecture lectures. (BWA-HA-HA, open minds be damned!) And you know, the more you read, the more you realize that there is no better criticism to be made of the movement than to listen to those who admire it. I found a much-linked 3-part video series about Walter Gropius and the theory behind his HQ built in Dessau, Germany. It contains all the clues as to why this style is not good for humanity (or at least for the individual within humanity), nor was it ever intended to be. Fascinating stuff.

Pay particular attention, class, to the difference between the principles the masters taught and imposed upon their students, and the principles which governed the way they chose to live themselves, just down the road, in the private homes.





IT'S ONE OF THOSE WEEKS WHERE I THANK AL GORE
FOR INVENTING THE INTERNETS

I keep having these evenings where we're watching something on the tube and I've got the lap-top out doing the background search. For example, the spousal unit is recently enamoured of the series Deadwood -- of course, he watches just for its portrayal of the development of social institutions out of chaos, doncha know -- certainly not for the cusswords and boobies.

But there I am on the Internets, reading about the real Deadwood, South Dakota, and all the real people who are the basis of the television characters. [More on that at a later date -- I can only do so much random in one day.]

So this week, me and the Internets had one of those spasms where a face or name pops into my head that I haven't thought of, literally (as Biden would say) in decades.

When this happens, just on a chance I Google the name, and check out the Facebook thing, and by gumbo, more often than not, there they be in one form or another -- either they've got a business, or have written a letter to the editor, or have directed a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series.

Not kiddin' about that last part -- considering my decades spent on the fringes of the world of theatre, it's not so unlikely that some old familiar face will have made itself theatrically notorious. My own "career", such as it was, has been predominantly amateur hour -- my closest brush with production on a really high professional level was actually my very first job, snagged when I was but 18, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a place which, while technically an arena for non-professionals ["pre-professional" as it was called], was in fact a nursery for many people who went on to long and prestigious careers -- like directing a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series. Specifically, that would be Ron Lagomarsino I'm talking about -- curly-headed boy from Santa Clara, an old friend who became Truly Famous.

I have been following Ron's career progress for decades, and we corresponded for years (though that has lapsed). But the person whose face and name popped into my head this week for no discernible reason (also a colleague from that long-ago Shakespeare experience) was one whom I never knew very well, and last laid eyes on 38 years ago. So why am I suddenly seeing Paul Myrvold in the corner of my mind's eye? Dunno.

Out comes the lap-top, on go the Internets.

And there he be -- living in small-town California after a productive stint in the Big Apple, doing local theatre, juggling two jobs, and (wait for it...) STILL MARRIED TO THE SAME WOMAN!!!!!.

He's also done the lead in Man of La Mancha at least six times since he went west [that's had me bellowing out show tunes all morning while I made my toast and got the mail -- "I was spawned in a ditch/by a mother who left me there....."], but as far as I'm concerned his name ought to be on a blazing marquis somewhere just for being a liberal artistic baby-boomer capable of celebrating a 40th wedding anniversary. How many of those have there been since Jimmy Stewart?

I know he's a liberal 'cause he's on the Facebook thing, and gives a shout-out to Obama. [gag] I'll overlook that, though, 'cause he and Sylvia have three kids too! [no secrets being revealed here, folks, it's all on the Internets in the public domain] -- and I have this vague recollection that life did not make the stork business easy for them, so good on 'em. More lights, more red carpets, hand these folks the statuette: they're a family!

Kind of sad that this takes me so by surprise, but you live long enough in the Modern Age, and you learn to take nothing for granted.

By the way, Paul's got a couple years on me, and he is lookin' good. That's so not fair. How does that happen when I've been the one up here in the deep-freeze for 35 years?

All this is of no great moment to anything in my life -- just a snapshot of the interwoven world we live in: the slightly creepy quality of its shrinking privacy, but the compensatory aspect of its capacity for connectedness.

(I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence -- there's a job for me somewhere in government.)


ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE

The Premier of Newfoundland/Labrador, the rich and oily Danny Williams, apparently needs some heart surgery. I could easily imagine that little old St. John's might not have everything he needs for a complicated procedure, but surely it could be accessed in Montreal or Toronto.

But NO-O-O-O -- for some reason Danny, who has no reason to be content with anything but the best, is trotting off to the U.S. of A. to patch up his cod-nourished heart.

This has not escaped notice in the American press: check out the Drudge Report, Instapundit, BeltwayBlips, the Politico, RealClearPolitics, and JustOneMinute:

OK, fun's fun but let's have a "To be fair" moment - Newfoundland & Labrador has a population of roughly half a million, which would not even make it a big-time, NFL-ready city in the US. I would think the premier ought to head to Toronto for top surgery, but he is independently wealthy and prefers US services. No kidding.

Heh. Yiss, b'y.


MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH

Was happy to have spurred a special parish brunch collection for victims of the Haiti earthquake, for money that we could count on going straight to the heart of the matter, as it was collected for the use of the Missionaries of the Poor, the Jamaica-based order of brothers with whom I spent the preponderance of four missionary trips to Kingston, back in the day.

Their Haitian outpost (in the north, at Cap Haitien) was not hit by what seems to have been a very localized quake, but they will be dealing with refugees and other needy folks from the epicentre. If you're looking for a target of charitable giving, which you can be absolutely certain will go directly to the victims with barely a particle of overhead, send your dollar$ to the Missionaries of the Poor.

Also in the Haiti-saving business, a splendid little crew of ex-Marines and others who blew in and blew out of Haiti so fast, mission accomplished, that I didn't get time to bring attention to their efforts and advertise their bling. It was a typically Marine-produced surgical strike [and I mean that literally -- hat-tip Joe Biden.....], with a small, well-equipped, fully qualified team of do-ers who shoved aside the bureaucracies and competing interests and got 'er done.

I'm sure their success will lead them to other similar missions, so go right on ahead and check them out, send them dough, and buy their shirts (some design elements contributed by my niece). It's all right here, and it's called TEAM RUBICON. Ooh-rah.


CANDLEMAS -- ANCIENT FEAST, TIMELESS MASS


Joined a motley crew of singers to assist in the super-duper Missa Solemnis carried out by our local representative of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (strayed traditionalist lambs now back in the fold). We have but one in Toronto, Fr. Howard Venette, but on these occasions he is ably assisted by seminarians wanting to learn the old ways. Music was decent -- not up to the standards of the Choir Formerly Known As Mine but quite pleasurable to do, some chant, some hymns, some polyphony.

Some memories, some longings.

As usual, the Anchoress covers the feast beautifully.

The Anchoress also says her bit about the coming Super Bowl ad controversy, with the acceptance of a Focus on the Family-funded pro-life ad (in the most literal sense, Joe!) telling the personal story of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's narrow escape when his mother chose to bring him to term rather than abort him because her health was in danger.

Big Surprise: the ad has caused all the usual suspects to go apoplectic at the thought of abortion dissent being given air-time before this huge television audience.

Really Big Surprise: pro-choice Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins calls the ad's critics on their obvious intolerance and suppression of genuine choice. Wow. She even refers to the biggest nay-sayers, the NOW gang, as the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time". Heh. Stunning.

And yet so obvious. Remember Madonna's early hit, Papa Don't Preach? The same forces of "choice" went ape-sh#t that the traitorous Madonna had dared to record a message about the determination of a pregnant teen to keep her baby. Of course, it wasn't really a "message", it was just an anecdote: one story of one girl who "got in trouble" and was telling her father in no uncertain terms that she, one lone girl in one situation, was going to keep her one baby. At no point did the song lyrics drift into advice or admonitions about any other girl in any other set of circumstances -- never did it recommend a particular course of action, or condemn another. It was a story. And the feminists pilloried her for it.

People that criticized the song's message include Ellen Goodman, a national syndicated columnist, who called the video "a commercial for teenage pregnancy".^[42] Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, the spokeswoman of the National Organization of Women (NOW), angrily called for Madonna to make a public statement or another record supporting the opposite point of view.^[43] Alfred Moran, the executive director of Planned Parenthood of New York City, also criticized the song, fearing that it would undermine efforts to promote birth control among adolescents and that it would encourage teenage pregnancy.
[Wikipedia]

Hey, if Madonna couldn't keep the femininnies happy, what's a poor Jesus-loving beefcake footballer to do? Hope he fares better than those reactionary rockers, Seals and Crofts, who many years ago had the almighty gall to put out a song which involved genuine advocacy of a position on this controversial subject, a song called Unborn Child. Wooooh! Did the cr&p ever hit the feminist fan on that one!

Ah, Choice -- it's a beautiful thing. Long as it's the right one. Otherwise, duck!

Incoming!!!!


POLITICAL NOTES [not possible to avoid them]

It's tradition for the sitting President to appear and speak at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. Apparently Mr. Obama was urged to skip it this year, but it's nice to know that he still has at least a few political/public service instincts intact, and he did attend.

His speech was notable for what has become his customary tone: whining and scolding and preaching, and singing the chorus from that famous Beatle hit, I, Me, Mine. [He seems to have missed the interview where George Harrison explained that the song was about ego as a problem, not as an ambition. Mr. Obama has an uncomfortable penchant for trying to see how many time he can utter "I, me, and mine" in one speech. This one was no exception, despite the fact that it's supposed to be about faith in God -- well, no wonder he got confused.]

Matters of Ego aside [u-u-u-u-n-n-h.... PUSH!!!!], the President out-did his growing reputation for total cluelessness about the fundamentals of his job, when he repeated an account of heroic American service in Haiti, as carried out by our military. I'm sure he thought this would be a good opportunity to, FOR ONCE, say something complimentary about America and its service members. However, since this is something which does not come naturally to him and he must be fed such material by his handy teleprompter, once again POTUS stepped in it -- revealing not only his ignorance but his supreme overconfidence in spite of that ignorance, and his failure to do his homework about things dear to America's heart.

Mr. Obama told of an American (Haitian descent) Naval officer administering help to an earthquake victim. He identified, or rather mis-identified, one "Christian" Brossard as a "translator" -- in fact, Hospitalman Petty Officer Christopher Brossard is a Navy Corpsman, that trusted and valued adjunct to all Marine companies, as well as other branches, charged with giving emergency medical treatment in the heat of battle before casualties are evac-ed to safety, as well as providing medic services within military hospitals. For Hospitalman Brossard, translating was just a happy accident of his Haitian roots, something he could employ while doing what he came to do.

Mr. Obama's ill-mannered stumble on Brossard's name was inexcusable in this setting, and whoever prepared his remarks should face consequences (which, of course, will never happen). But more telling was the mistake which was Mr. Obama's own, showing the kind of carelessness towards his duties as Commander-in-Chief for which he is now justly famous.

If he had anything but a tin ear for his military responsibilities, Mr. Obama would know that Hospitalman Brossard's highly respected MOS (that's Military Operation Specialty, Mr. President) is that of Navy Corpsman. That's pronounced "COR-MAN", Mr. President, not "CORPSE-MAN", as you said it, TWICE, in your Prayer Breakfast speech.

I know it wasn't part of Saul Alinsky's vocabulary, and it doesn't come up much when you're kibbitzing with Rahm Emmanuel. But, Jaysus, even Jeremiah Wright would know what a corpsman was, and how to pronounce it! How could you get outta Harvard and not recognize the word "corps" on the page, Sir? How did it not come up, even in a non-military context? What sort of crap was on your reading list?

In the pithy words of Dennis Miller (referring, I think, to Bill Clinton, but I wouldn't swear to that), Mr. Obama, if you were any more low-rent, you'd be a spring break destination.


I've had it with this random stuff -- it's 4:00 a.m. Time to catch some Z's.

CURTAIN.

The man synonymous with the word "mime" died in Paris on Saturday September 22. The incomparable MARCEL MARCEAU was buried today in the equally incomparable Pere Lachaise cemetery. Every non-clever epigram about "silence" has been written and uttered a thousand-fold, and if there's a clever one out there, I haven't heard it. This genius of gesture will be mourned by everyone who loved and appreciated his art-- and faux-mourned by a whole ton of people who have for years been exchanging groaning mockeries about mime over their coffees and cocktails.

At some point, perhaps in the 80's, it became fashionable to pronounce mimes of all sorts ridiculous and annoying. I suppose there were members of the profession who brought this on themselves: TV variety mimes Shields and Yarnell made it a coy and sentimental mass-marketed art, and it seemed for a time that big-city squares were teeming with street buskers who thought there was nothing more to the art than painting on a clown face and moon-walking inside an imaginary box. And then asking for money.

This in turn gave a lot of cool sophisticates and stand-up comics license to put mimes on their list of people to be anathematized without fear of argument. Some of us, however, stayed quietly loyal to the great art, and kept an eye out for people who were actually good at it, or drew on it in a newer context. Johnny Depp comes to mind, in Benny and Joon.

But the Undisputed Master of the art remained this man I'd had the privilege to see in live performance a couple of times when I was in high school. (I think I have an autographed programme somewhere.) I never saw him again after that, but paid him the best tribute I could by taking two semesters of mime from another, albeit unsung, master, Kaz Piesowocki at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.


Mime was part of the Acting program. I took the one compulsory Acting course without intending to ever put it to use in performance. But the mime component I returned to for a second round. I was just interested in finding out how it works-- gaining an appreciation for the way that acting starts with a physical "impulse" from the heart, and seeing how stripped-down essentials can communicate as much or more than busy details.

I wanted to know how you walk against the wind, and how you reach out to pluck the leaf with the smoothness of mercury. Kaz knew how to teach that, and I wasn't half bad at it. He was a pleasure to watch in action, either at mime, ballet, or as a director of full-length stories in mime, like the (oh-so-badly-lit!!!) story of Joan of Arc. (How we all laughed about the notorious Joan in the Dark.)

Kaz retired in 1998, the same year Marcel Marceau came to the U-Vic Phoenix Theatre and spoke to the students. Wish I had been there for both events.

I knew of Marcel Marceau as a clown and a tragedian under the Klieglights, but never knew until the obits [and here] came out this week about his role in the great tragedy of our time: being a Jew in France during the Nazi occupation, working for the Resistance to help others escape, losing his father to the ovens at Auschwitz. One is left wondering how, after all this, the optimistic spirit of his "Bip" could ever be born. Yet he was, and lived to be 84, and left this world unrivalled. I'm not sure he would have been so happy about that: a rival would have also insured a successor, which he plainly desired. Let's hope for that.


Adieu, Bip.







Au revoir.








CANADIAN JOURNALISM HITS ANOTHER HIGH-WATER MARK

MACLEAN'S Magazine fancies itself the Time or Newsweek of Canada, and in the worst sense it may well have achieved that status. Continuing its sterling tradition of intelligent commentary on world events, as displayed in these cover stories of the past few years.....

... like their 2004 American election special....






Or this gem from 2006 (the answer to their question being, of course, "NO, that would be Jimmy Carter, by the landslide the voters didn't give him in '76.


Now the editors have gifted us with this:



Now that's HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM, EH? We're so proud, up here in the Great White North.

And how do we know this cover is a lie? HOW DO WE KNOW THAT BUSH IS NOT SADDAM, and that any suggestion of a resemblance between the two is so unspeakably, ungratefully STOOPID that is just defies human understanding????????

Because there's not a cloud of toxic gas now floating north of the 49th parallel in the vicinity of the Maclean's head office (that's One Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto...). Because Maclean's Editor Kenneth Whyte has not, to my knowledge, been hung on a meat-hook and beaten to death. Because, ... because, ... well, as Kathy Shaidle [new blog alert!] might put it, "If Bush is a Nazi why aren't you a lampshade?"


Ahem.


Speaking of Nazis-----


FLASH!!! -- SEEN IN AND AROUND THE BIG APPLE HOT-SPOTS:


Whadd-I-say??? Huh? Hey, don't taze me, bro!

New York City opens its doors (well, a few of them) to our buddy, Madmood Ahmadinnerjacket, so he can lay down some peace, love, and sure-I'm-a-feminist vibes for his adoring left-wing public. There were lots of places he wanted to go, but couldn't manage to get them all onto his already crowded itinerary [smiles and a hat-tip -- Hart Seely at Slate.com].


MINOR FOOTNOTE FROM THE RECENT TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM-FESTIVAL:

SEPARATED AT BIRTH












Film "auteur" and perennial ghoul David Cronenberg unveiled (as 'twere) his latest work and won the big prize at the TIFF. It's called Eastern Promises, and is the latest venture in a time-tested cinematic genre that has become Cronenberg's new signature style: Naked Tattooed Viggo-Vision. Our spies are certain they overheard the feted (fetid?) director muttering: "Well, if I can't have him, at least I can watch."

This review brought to you by someone who hasn't seen the movie. Too busy watching 3:10 to Yuma.

OH YEAH!

LORD OF THE RINGS: The Musical
in preview (officially opening March 23)
Princess of Wales Theatre
Toronto, Ontario

Some said it couldn’t be done. Some said it shouldn’t be done. It’s been done.

My Initial Prediction: It will SUCK.

Now that I’ve seen it: A flawed but pleasing entertainment.

Updated Prediction:It will tank. Critics will be unkind.

For starters, it’s 3 ½ hours long, plus two intermissions. But then, how could it be otherwise?

It's impossible for me to say, but for someone coming to it without knowledge of the books and/or films, this show just might be utterly incoherent. However, one of our guests, who hasn’t seen any of the films and has only distant memories of the books, enjoyed the musical very much—so who knows?

In terms of characterization and many of the visual effects, this new stage version generally imitates the films, and one ends up admiring it (or not) to the degree that the imitation is successful.

Unfortunately there is not a single acting performance that can be said to take hold of the audience with anything approaching the power of the movies acting ensemble.This is not to say that the acting is really bad—far from it.

(Only one role, Arwen, is a complete disaster. With underemployed actresses available in droves, it is inexplicable that this woman was cast. Her performance is breathy and affected, and totally annoying.) But for all their noble effort, the cast overall is under par.

This includes Brent Carver, one of two performers with [Canadian] name recognition, who is surprisingly weak. One would have expected such an experienced actor to overcome his own relative youth and slightness of voice and body, to fully inhabit the ancient wizard Gandalf. But he never manages it. Richard MacMillan, as Saruman, is a strong presence, but neither complex nor especially frightening. Sadly, Evan Buliung as Aragorn is entirely unremarkable, which makes for an even bigger void at the story’s centre than a weak Gandalf.

Victor Young (Elrond), James Love (Frodo), Michael Therriault (Gollum), and the other hobbits (Owen Sharpe, Dylan Roberts, Peter Howe) work hard and are solid.It's just too difficult to know how much credit to give them, since their performances are largely derivative from the films.

Yet I’m glad to have seen this show. It was like a visit with old friends, or maybe a long session with an old photo album, where deep memories have been preserved, so vivid as to be easily brought alive again. My worst fears—visions of dancing Ents, Orcs doing routines out of “Stomp,” and the road to Mordor taking on shades of “yellow brick”—did not in the least materialize. In fact, it is barely a musical—that genre in which song lyrics, musical styles, and dance routines do the work of dialogue by developing characters, defining relationships, relaying information, and advancing the plot.

LOTR:M featured a few character duets (Frodo and Sam, plus the obligatory Aragorn/Arwen love song), but on the whole the singing served as a kind of sound-track: solo reflections (Galadriel singing—not well!—about Lothlarien); scene-setting choruses (elves in odd costumes sounding like a church choir as Rivendell and Lothlarien are introduced—the former dark and indistinguishable from other locations, but the latter magically beautiful); mass sound effects for dramatic scenes, like the battles; and lots and lots of “traveling music.” People were forever charging around in overland circuits.The plot sort of demands this, but considering how many scenes and characters had to be cut, all the running in circles didn’t seem like time well-invested.

The music itself was never memorable (with the exception of the second Sam/Frodo duet)—definitely a show where you leave the theatre “humming the scenery” (which was exquisite). The most standard ensemble number was a barroom song and dance at the Prancing Pony in Bree, which was almost successful—the song was cute and hobbity (though the lyrics, like most of the rest in the show, were largely inaudible), but the costumes suggested an old west saloon (because…?).Other costumes were equally strange, like those of the itinerant human “props” (tree trunks and such) dressed like a chorus of Shi'ite imams.

Still, as I say, the ludicrous possibilities that a musical LOTR conjures up were mercifully absent, and I respect the producers for that.

The show had two HUGE problems, one unavoidable (way too much material—how to edit?) and one entirely avoidable (does anyone understand what this story is really about?).

Any stage show in which an epic tale is to be delivered with masses of spectacular special effects runs the risk of submerging its story in lights and smoke and shifting set pieces. To minimize this risk it helps to have a clear vision of the story’s vital themes, train your eyes on them, and never let go. Had the creative team for this production fixed upon such a vision it would have inspired the actors and been reflected in every performance. From where I sat, they just plain missed it.

Lord of the Rings is about the cosmic war between good and evil, the ultimate battle for the survival of freedom, order, virtue, and life itself. It is not just a societal power struggle (Tolkien was quite clear on that)—it is about whether the continued existence of the Good will be possible.

The prospect of losing this war should be a sickening horror—and those who are evil should horrify, and sicken, on sight. Orcs should be terrifying, their physical deformity a symbol of a moral deformity,on the part of Sauron and his minions, which is more frightening still. (The LOTR:M Orcs didn’t even come close.)

Tolkien is also very clear that, more than anything else, his story is about death—how each life will come, go, and perhaps leave something behind, but maybe not. The fact that when we pass, all the good we have done may pass away too, might break our hearts. But this in no way diminishes our sacred duty to do battle for what is right, whether across vast kingdoms or just in the courtyard of our small corner of the Shire. There is an agony in this, one which for Tolkien was only relieved by his faith, which, however veiled, informs every syllable of his great novel.

Agony of this kind—of the desperate war between good and evil—did not inform Lord of the Rings: the Musical. Without it, everything suffered from a hollowness at its heart which lights and smoke and scenery cannot fill.I was never for a moment afraid that the universe was in danger of decimation and deformity, or that evil would triumph, or even that anyone would die.

I cannot begin to imagine the nightmare of trying to decide what to include and what to jettison from Tolkien’s massive saga. It seems clear that the writers and director of this musical version were, not unexpectedly, so immersed in the material that they had trouble selecting, and in the end they attempted to include too many pieces of information that flew by unexplained or undeveloped.

This could easily be the most ambitious commercial musical production ever undertaken, even if it had not been laboring under the shadow of three staggeringly successful and brilliant (and lengthy) film versions of the same material. Factor in the book/movie/expectations burden, and you have to give these people full marks just for having the gall—as well as due credit for doing as spectacular a job as they did.

Generally I felt content but detached while watching this show. But in one respect it won my heart, that being that it had the wisdom to include the pivotal episode of “The Scouring of the Shire.” To this day I cannot fathom how Peter Jackson could have left it out of the films—to have done so , I think, reveals a critical hole in Jackson’s comprehension of the story.

The Scouring is the expression, in full bloom, of Tolkien’s themes of our passage toward death— the irreversibility of the wounds, the transformations, and the resignation that time brings to all of us, no matter how much we appear to have gone back to “how it once was.” We don’t-- we can’t-- and others coming after us may live to see all resolutions and restorations quite undone. The musical LOTR paid its tribute to this vital element of the story's conclusion, and of all the painstaking selections that a stage production compelled, this was the best.

So, just like my friend Gwyneth’s movie at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival, I got to see Lord of the Rings: The Musical for free. And again, I’d gladly have paid.